User Interface designers and developers deal with various challenges in creating User Interfaces for mobile device. These are:

• Limited Screen space available on the devices.
• Large variations across many different handsets available in the market and everyday new models being launched.
• Many different platforms on the devices.
• Lack of any standard and consistency across the device platforms.

To tackle this problem we, at Duronto Technologies, have classified user interfaces into 2 broad categories:

1. Sophisticated and feature rich User Interfaces.
2. Simpler and utility based User Interfaces.

 

We tackle both types of these user interfaces with a different strategy for each. While for more specialized and feature rich User Interfaces, we have customized libraries that behave consistently across handset platforms. We use such libraries in our code for Rapid Application Development (RAD) of neat looking UIs.

Our Dynamic User Interface (DUI) framework is novel concept wherein we can generate User Interfaces without having to program them. We have defined our own XML based standards and built-in classes which we use to simply generate a custom framework based on configuration settings.

Thus we achieve that the same code is not to be written again and again. Dynamic User Interface defines the abstract interface. This interface can be manipulated on run-time. This concept helps solve the problem by not requiring the code to be re-written for different devices.
While this problem is solved in multiple ways for the desktop platforms, using the standards thus defined as is fails due to smaller number of features that a mobile can support. Also such standards do not incorporate aspects such as communication mechanism as well as what actions need to be performed upon certain user inputs.

We at Duronto Technologies understood that there is a vast need for having simple User Interfaces that can be simply created by avoiding writing even a single line of code.

The DUI application consists of a Form Compiler and Form Interpreter. This compiler compiles the XML file that describes the user interface using our standards on runtime and shows the User Interface accordingly. Changing the XML file will allow the form compiler to change the view according to the required specifications. There also exists a form interpreter that provides actions related to user events. These are also described in the XML using the XML standards. Additionally the communication mechanism and simple protocol with the server is also defined as a part of the XML standard which eliminates the requirement of writing even a single line of code. This standard is simple enough to be supported on almost any device.

A UI builder tool is also developed so that even a non-technical guy can develop the user interface for his requirements and add functionalities that he needs.