Accessible user interface support for multi-device ubiquitous applications: architectural modifiability considerations

The market for personal computing devices is rapidly expanding from PC, to mobile, home entertainment systems, and even the automotive industry. When developing software targeting such ubiquitous devices, the balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue. With the rise of Web technology and the Internet of things, ubiquitous applications have become a reality. Nonetheless, the diversity of presentation and interaction modalities still drastically limit the number of targetable devices and the accessibility toward end users. This paper presents webinos, a multi-device application middleware platform founded on the Future Internet infrastructure. Hereto, the platform's architectural modifiability considerations are described and evaluated as a generic enabler for supporting applications, which are executed in ubiquitous computing environments

User Interface Plasticity: Model Driven Engineering to the Limit!

Keynote paper.International audienceTen years ago, I introduced the notion of user interface plasticity to denote the capacity of user interfaces to adapt, or to be adapted, to the context of use while preserving usability. The Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approach, which was used for user interface generation since the early eighties in HCI, has recently been revived to address this complex problem. Although MDE has resulted in interesting and convincing results for conventional WIMP user interfaces, it has not fully demonstrated its theoretical promises yet. In this paper, we discuss how to push MDE to the limit in order to reconcile high-level modeling techniques with low-level programming in order to go beyond WIMP user interfaces

An MDE approach for Runtime Monitoring and Adapting Component-based Systems: Application to WIMP User Interface Architectures

In certain systems, software must be adapted at runtime to the requirements and changes occurring in the context. A strategy to achieve this goal is to model such systems as software architectures making use of the Component-based Software Engineering (CBSE). Thus, the system can be adapted through the reconfiguration of the software architectures. In this paper we present a schema for the adaptation of software architectures at runtime based on the system context observation. The software system is defined by means of architectural models at two levels: abstract and concrete. We use a trading process to regenerate concrete architectural models from their abstract definitions and a component repository. We also use Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) techniques to transform at runtime such models in order to achieve the system adaptation to the monitored context by using observers. This article describes a case study of component-based user interfaces to illustrate our approach.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2010-15588Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TRA2009-0309Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2008-03107Junta de Andalucía TIC-611

Adaptive model-driven user interface development systems

Adaptive user interfaces (UIs) were introduced to address some of the usability problems that plague many software applications. Model-driven engineering formed the basis for most of the systems targeting the development of such UIs. An overview of these systems is presented and a set of criteria is established to evaluate the strengths and shortcomings of the state-of-the-art, which is categorized under architectures, techniques, and tools. A summary of the evaluation is presented in tables that visually illustrate the fulfillment of each criterion by each system. The evaluation identified several gaps in the existing art and highlighted the areas of promising improvement

Model-driven transformation and validation of adaptive educational hypermedia using CAVIAr

Authoring of Adaptive Educational Hypermedia is a complex activity requiring the combination of a range of design and validation techniques.We demonstrate how Adaptive Educational Hypermedia can be transformed into CAVIAr courseware validation models allowing for its validation. The model-based representation and analysis of different concerns and model-based mappings and transformations are key contributors to this integrated solution. We illustrate the benefits of Model Driven Engineering methodologies that allow for interoperability between CAVIAr and a well known Adaptive Educational Hypermedia framework. By allowing for the validation of Adaptive Educational Hypermedia, the course creator limits the risk of pedagogical problems in migrating to Adaptive Educational Hypermedia from static courseware

A Collaborative testbed Web Tool for Learning Model Transformation in Software Engineering Education

Software Engineering provides mechanisms to design, develop, manage and maintain social and collaborative software systems. At present, the Software Engineering Curricula includes teaching Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) as a new paradigm that enables higher productivity, attempting to maximize compatibility between systems. Modern learning methods MDE require the use of practical approaches to analyze new model-transformation techniques. Model transformations are carried out by using very high-level languages, like the ATL language. This model transformation language is built as a plugin for the Eclipse framework, and users who want to collaborate and develop software with it, have some difficulties executing ATL transformations outside this platform. To handle models at runtime, it is interesting to perform the transformations in a standalone way. In this context, we have developed a testbed web tool which aims to be useful for learning model transformation techniques. The tool offers a Graphical User Interface to test and verify the involved model transformations.The proposal is useful as a collaborative scenario for learning MDE and model transformation issues and techniques in Software Engineering education