User interface style guide compliance

• US 9,459,846 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2011
• Issued: 10/04/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Bornheimer, Karin, Haug, Tobias, Uhl, Thomas, Brandt, Carsten
• Primary Examiner(s): Ell, Matthew
• Application Number:
  US13/018,106
• Publication Number:
  US 20120198368A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,073 Days
• Field of Search: 715/704, 715/763, 715/700, 715/235, 714/E11.208, 707/999, 705/126
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/77 Software metrics

Abstract

This disclosure provides various embodiments for checking user interfaces'"'"' compliance with user style guide rules in connection with a UI development tool. A particular digital UI model is identified in a plurality of digital UI models, each UI model representing attributes of a corresponding software application user interface in a plurality of user interfaces available for access by a UI development tool adapted to modify attributes of user interfaces in the plurality of user interfaces. The particular UI model represents attributes of a particular user interface accessed by the UI development tool. The particular UI model is parsed to determine that at least one attribute of the particular user interface violates at least one UI style guide rule. Results are presented in a user interface of the UI development tool, the presentation indicating that the particular attribute of the particular user interface violates the UI style guide rule.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying, in memory, at least one particular digital UI model in a plurality of digital UI models, each UI model representing visual attributes of a corresponding software application user interface in a plurality of user interfaces available for access by a UI development tool adapted to modify visual attributes of user interfaces in the plurality of user interfaces, wherein the particular digital UI model represents visual attributes of a particular user interface accessed by the UI development tool;

retrieving at least one particular user interface style guide rule in a set of user interface style guide rules defining styles for user interfaces being developed for a software application;

during development of the software application, parsing, using at least one processor, the particular UI model to determine that at least one visual attribute of the particular user interface violates the at least one particular user interface style guide rule in a plurality of user interface style guide rules;

calculating rule-based statistics to identify a rate of compliance with each user interface style guide rule in the set of user interface style guide rules;

sending data configured for use in presenting, in a user interface of the UI development tool, a presentation indicating that the at least one particular visual attribute of the particular user interface violates the particular user interface style guide rule; and

displaying the presentation further indicating the calculated statistics in the user interface of the UI development tool.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the particular UI model includes identifying, in memory, a particular UI rule check script from a plurality of UI rule check scripts, each UI rule check script corresponding to a user interface style guide rule in the plurality of user interface style guide rules and adapted, when executed, to parse UI models to determine whether user interfaces corresponding to the UI models violate the corresponding user interface style guide rule.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user request to modify at least one attribute of the particular user interface;

modifying the at least one attribute of the particular user interface using the UI development tool; and

modifying the particular UI model to reflect modification of the at least one attribute of the particular user interface.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising triggering parsing of the particular UI model in response to the modifying of the particular UI model.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

dynamically identifying the particular user interface style guide rule as relevant to the modified at least one attribute.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

dynamically identifying a particular UI rule check script from a plurality of UI rule check scripts, the particular UI rule check script corresponding to the particular user interface style guide rule;

wherein executing the particular UI rule check script parses the particular UI model to determine that the at least one attribute of the particular user interface violates the particular user interface style guide rule.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the presentation includes identification of the violated particular user interface style guide rule.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the presentation further includes identification of the at least one attribute violating the particular user interface style guide rule.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user request for information relating to a violation of the particular user interface style guide rule by the at least one attribute violating the particular user interface style guide rule; and

sending rule information describing the violated particular user interface style guide rule.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising retrieving the rule information from a library of rule information describing user interface style guide rules in the plurality of user interface style guide rules.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a resolution request from a user to resolve the violation of the particular user interface style guide rule.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising launching resolution of the violation of the particular user interface style guide rule.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the resolution request includes a user request to ignore the violation of the particular user interface style guide rule.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one particular user interface style guide rule includes at least a first and a second user interface style guide rules in the plurality of user interface style guide rules and the particular UI model is further parsed to determine whether the particular user interface violates the second user interface style guide rule.

15. An article comprising a non-transitory, machine-readable storage device storing instructions operable to cause at least one processor to perform operations comprising:

identifying, in memory, at least one particular digital UI model in a plurality of digital UI models, each UI model representing visual attributes of a corresponding software application user interface in a plurality of user interfaces available for access by a UI development tool adapted to modify visual attributes of user interfaces in the plurality of user interfaces, wherein the particular digital UI model represents visual attributes of a particular user interface accessed by the UI development tool;

retrieving at least one particular user interface style guide rule in a set of user interface style guide rules defining styles for user interfaces being developed for a software application;

during development of the software application, parsing, using at least one processor, the particular UI model to determine that at least one visual attribute of the particular user interface violates the at least one particular user interface style guide rule in a plurality of user interface style guide rules;

calculating rule-based statistics to identify a rate of compliance with each user interface style guide rule in the set of user interface style guide rules;

sending data configured for use in presenting, in a user interface of the UI development tool, a presentation indicating that the at least one particular visual attribute of the particular user interface violates the particular user interface style guide rule; and

displaying the presentation further indicating the calculated statistics in the user interface of the UI development tool.

16. A hardware system, comprising:

one or more processors configured to execute a UI development environment adapted to modify visual attributes of user interfaces in a plurality of user interfaces;

at least one tangible, non-transitory data repository storing a plurality of UI rule check scripts, each UI rule check script in the plurality of UI rule check scripts corresponding to a user interface style guide rule in a plurality of user interface style guide rules and adapted, when executed, to parse at least one digital UI model to determine whether a user interface corresponding to the digital UI model violates the corresponding user interface style guide rule; and

calculating rule-based statistics to identify a rate of compliance with each user interface style guide rule in the plurality of user interface style guide rules; and

displaying, in a user interface of a UI development tool in the UI development environment, a presentation further indicating the calculated statistics and that at least one visual attribute of the user interface violates the corresponding user interface style guide rule.

17. The hardware system of claim 16, wherein modification of a particular user interface by the UI development environment modifies a particular digital UI model modeling visual attributes of the particular user interface.

18. The hardware system of claim 16, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of UI rule check scripts are integrated with the UI development environment.

19. The hardware system of claim 16, further comprising at least one data repository storing a plurality of digital UI models, each digital UI model modeling at least a portion of a user interface in a plurality of user interfaces.

20. The hardware system of claim 19, wherein each digital UI model in the plurality of digital UI models is a design time model of a corresponding user interface and is parsable by at least one processor to generate the corresponding user interface for use in runtime.