User driven applications - new design paradigm

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new user-driven application paradigm that allows users to control graphical outputs through movable and resizable graphics, addressing limitations of fixed views in complex scientific and engineering software.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel algorithm enabling user-driven graphical interfaces, shifting from fixed, developer-defined views to flexible, user-controlled visualizations.

Findings

Enables user-controlled visualization customization

Reduces conflicts between designers and users

Applicable beyond scientific and engineering applications

Abstract

Programs for complicated engineering and scientific tasks always have to deal with a problem of showing numerous graphical results. The limits of the screen space and often opposite requirements from different users are the cause of the infinite discussions between designers and users, but the source of this ongoing conflict is not in the level of interface design, but in the basic principle of current graphical output: user may change some views and details, but in general the output view is absolutely defined and fixed by the developer. Author was working for several years on the algorithm that will allow eliminating this problem thus allowing stepping from designer-driven applications to user-driven. Such type of applications in which user is deciding what, when and how to show on the screen, is the dream of scientists and engineers working on the analysis of the most complicated tasks. The new paradigm is based on movable and resizable graphics, and such type of graphics can be widely used not only for scientific and engineering applications.