Animated Transitions between User Interface Views

User interface development life cycle often involve several different views of the user interface over time either at the same level of abstraction or at different levels of abstraction. The relationship between these different views is often supported by tiling coordinated windows containing these related views simultaneously, thus leaving the developer with the responsibility to effectively and efficiently link the corresponding elements of these different views. This paper attempts to overcome the shortcomings posed by the coordinated visualization of multiple views by providing UsiView, a user interface rendering engine in which one single window ensures an animated transition between these different user interface views dynamically: an internal view, an external view, and a conceptual view. Examples include the following cases: an authoring environment ensures an animated transition between an internal view (e.g., HTML5) and its external view (e.g., a web page), an Integrated Development Environment ensures an animated transition between its conceptual view and its external view; a model-driven engineering environment ensures an animated transition between the conceptual view at different levels of abstraction, e.g., from task to abstract user interface to concrete user interface until final user interface. The paper discusses the potential advantages of using animated transitions between user interface views during the development life cycle.