Modelling form-based interfaces with bipartite state machines

This article presents the concept of form storyboarding, a new modelling method for eliciting, specifying and communicating functional requirements of applications with form-based interfaces. We identify two-staged interaction as the abstract concept behind form-based interfaces. The method encompasses a visual language for the documents to be created and a set of proposals for the activities involved in that. The method fits to different and ubiquitous types of submit/response style interfaces, i.e. mainframe terminals as well as web-based interfaces. The method yields an abstract interface model based on bipartite state machines. The model is executable and can be used for automatic prototype generation. Form storyboarding is first and foremost a feature-driven approach. The whole form storyboard can be obtained by collecting single system features. Crucial for this approach is the fact that diagrams can be combined in an easy operation, by building the union of both diagrams and identifying nodes and edges with the same name.