Contributions to the development of methods and tools for interactive design of applications software

Sammanfattning: This thesis consists of five research reports dealing with different aspects of the design of interactive application oriented software. A generalized framework for dialogue design is presented and the implementation of customized programming environments, supporting computer utilization for specific applications is discussed. Highlights of our presentation are: - Uniform treatment of different kinds of end-user dialogues, especially with respect to irregular or unexpected terminal inputs- Emphasis on programming environments instead of language design, promoting (he view of programming as a specification process performed with a data editor.- Introduction of an intermediate system level, where a general-purpose programming system is specialized for a given class of applications, through the support of specialized conceptual frameworks and default mechanisms.- Promotion of control independence in the sense that the specification of program execution particulars, such as end-user interactions etc., is postponed as long as possible and liable to subsequent change without reprogramming.