Modelling form-based interfaces with bipartite state machines D. Draheim a, * , G. Weber b a Institute of Computer Science, Freie Universita ¨t Berlin, Takustr. 9, 14195 Berlin, Germany b Department of Computer Science, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1020, New Zealand Received 6 July 2004; revised 6 September 2004; accepted 12 January 2005 Abstract 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. q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Requirements elicitation; System specification; Enterprise applications 1. Introduction The HCI community has naturally believed that over time the crude looking form-based interfaces will be replaced by advanced GUI-based interfaces. This belief has not reduced the practical importance and ubiquity of such form-based interfaces. However, it now 0953-5438/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2005.01.002 Interacting with Computers 17 (2005) 207–228 www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom * Corresponding author. Tel.: C4930 838 75144; fax: C4930 838 75109. E-mail addresses: draheim@acm.org (D. Draheim), g.weber@cs.auckland.ac.nz (G. Weber).