Some Comments on the Future of User Interface Tools

The goal of this paper is to point at some of the more important deficiencies of current user interface tools. Our point of view is an industrial one. Therefore, many of the requirements to user interface tools formulated in this paper are results from experience made with customers and real use of such tools. Let us mention already here the most eminent deficiency we currently see: the missing experience with the application of user interface tools, in contrast to the large number of tools that have been developed thus far. Also, it needs to be observed that workstations in office environments are not the only field where user interfaces exist. In detail we discuss the following areas: Al-inspired techniques, multi-media dialog, the evaluation of user interface and distributed computing.