The possibility of automatically generating the Human-Computer Interface is greately constrained, on the one hand, by the lack of suitable interaction models and, on the other hand, by the lack of methodologies that allow to see the interactive application development problem in a global perspective, by seeing the design of the computational layer closely coupled with the design of the interactive layer.
From the theoretical work on this problem, done within the JNICT INTERLAB project, a specific interaction model, called assisted mode, was devised, and a methodology created, which allows us to relate, within the same design context, the development of the application layer and the development of its User Interface.
In this article we present mainly the software framework which is under development as a support to the use of the methodology and that is called GAMA-X.
All the levels of this Interface Development System will be presented, with special focus on the internal structure and on the interconnection of the modules that implement the dialogue controller, the application model, an the presentation model.
For each module we present how its internal information can be derived from application and user interface specifications.
The GAMA-X system features a User Interfaces Generator. This generator automatically derives a User Interface specification from the aplication specification. The User Interface specification is then edited using interactive editors that automatically perform their syntactic validation. We stress that the methodology grants the development of interfaces that, although modular in respect to the application (cf. Separation Principle), have a sensitive and continuously adjusted behaviour due to its close connection (through communication) to the application layer.