Combining the Analysis of Spatial Layout and Text to Support Design Exploration

The design exploration (DE) approach allows a large number of probable end users to communicate with software developers by creating mockups of user interfaces and augmenting the partial designs (e.g. windows and widgets) produced with textual descriptions and explanations. Software developers collect and analyze these annotated partial designs to gain an understanding of the user, their activity, and the domain of concern. This paper presents the DE analyzer and its techniques for automatically analyzing the collection of annotated partial designs. The DE Analyzer uses a combination of textual and spatial layout analysis algorithms to assist software developers´ navigation and exploration of the information collected using the DE Builder.