User interface design is a complex task that involves designers examining a wide range of options. We present Spacewalker, a tool that allows designers to rapidly search a large design space for an optimal web UI with integrated support. Designers first annotate each attribute they want to explore in a typical HTML page, using a simple markup extension we designed. Spacewalker then parses the annotated HTML specification, and intelligently generates and distributes various configurations of the web UI to crowd workers for evaluation. We enhanced a genetic algorithm to accommodate crowd worker responses from pairwise comparison of UI designs, which is crucial for obtaining reliable feedback. Based on our experiments, Spacewalker allows designers to effectively search a large design space of a UI, using the language they are familiar with, and improve their design rapidly at a minimal cost.
@article{arxiv.2102.09039,
title = {Spacewalker: Rapid UI Design Exploration Using Lightweight Markup Enhancement and Crowd Genetic Programming},
author = {Mingyuan Zhong and Gang Li and Yang Li},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.09039},
year = {2021}
}