Engineering Adaptive Model-Driven User Interfaces for Enterprise Applications

Enterprise applications such as enterprise resource planning systems have numerous complex user interfaces (UIs). Usability problems plague these UIs because they are offered as a generic off-the-shelf solution to end-users with diverse needs in terms of their required features and layout preferences. Adaptive UIs can help in improving usability by tailoring the features and layout based on the context-of-use. The model-driven UI development approach offers the possibility of applying different types of adaptations on the various UI levels of abstraction. This approach forms the basis for many works researching the development of adaptive UIs. Yet, several gaps were identified in the state-of-the-art adaptive model-driven UI development systems. To fill these gaps, this thesis presents an approach that offers the following novel contributions: - The Cedar Architecture serves as a reference for developing adaptive model-driven enterprise application user interfaces. - Role-Based User Interface Simplification (RBUIS) is a mechanism for improving usability through adaptive behavior, by providing end-users with a minimal feature-set and an optimal layout based on the context-of-use. - Cedar Studio is an integrated development environment, which provides tool support for building adaptive model-driven enterprise application UIs using RBUIS based on the Cedar Architecture. The contributions were evaluated from the technical and human perspectives. Several metrics were established and applied to measure the technical characteristics of the proposed approach after integrating it into an open-source enterprise application. Additional insights about the approach were obtained through the opinions of industry experts and data from real-life projects. Usability studies showed the approach’s ability to significantly improve usability in terms of end-user efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction

Design for Product Service Supportability (DfPSS) Approach: A State of the Art to Foster Product Service System (PSS) Design

open5noProduct-Service System lifecycle is characterized by several phases from the initial concept to the final disposal. However, as for conventional products, the profit generation and the market success of PSSs critically depend on the decisions taken during the initial lifecycle stages, when PSSs are conceptualized, designed, developed and engineered. These are hence the phases deserving more attention in order to manage the intrinsic complexity of such systems, taking it in account during the entire PSS life cycle design phase. According to this, one of the main gaps detected in the PSS design process is the lack of methods able to support the early integration of service features during the product design. In this specific context DfX approaches, where X= x-bility stands for enhancing products design considering at the same time service features to be embedded on it (x) according to certain performance measures (-bility), are supposed to significantly contribute. The Serviceability point of view appears to be a critical aspect of the design of product-oriented PSS that has not been improving yet: significant enhancement in this products' characteristic will only occur if some changes will arise in the way they are designed. Indeed companies still need guidelines able to enhance the PSS design process in a more systematic way. On this basis, due to the main gap of integrating service features in the product design process, the paper presents and defines DfX approaches enlightening, among the several target properties they have been called to improve so far, the most suitable DfX streams detected to solve the reported PSS design issue and to define Design for Product Service Supportability (DfPSS).Sassanelli, Claudio; Pezzotta, Giuditta; Pirola, Fabiana; Terzi, Sergio; Rossi, MonicaSassanelli, Claudio; Pezzotta, Giuditta; Pirola, Fabiana; Terzi, Sergio; Rossi, Monic

Design for Product Service Supportability (DfPSS) Approach: A State of the Art to Foster Product Service System (PSS) Design

Product-Service System lifecycle is characterized by several phases from the initial concept to the final disposal. However, as for conventional products, the profit generation and the market success of PSSs critically depend on the decisions taken during the initial lifecycle stages, when PSSs are conceptualized, designed, developed and engineered. These are hence the phases deserving more attention in order to manage the intrinsic complexity of such systems, taking it in account during the entire PSS life cycle design phase. According to this, one of the main gaps detected in the PSS design process is the lack of methods able to support the early integration of service features during the product design. In this specific context DfX approaches, where X= x-bility stands for enhancing products design considering at the same time service features to be embedded on it (x) according to certain performance measures (-bility), are supposed to significantly contribute. The Serviceability point of view appears to be a critical aspect of the design of product-oriented PSS that has not been improving yet: significant enhancement in this products' characteristic will only occur if some changes will arise in the way they are designed. Indeed companies still need guidelines able to enhance the PSS design process in a more systematic way. On this basis, due to the main gap of integrating service features in the product design process, the paper presents and defines DfX approaches enlightening, among the several target properties they have been called to improve so far, the most suitable DfX streams detected to solve the reported PSS design issue and to define Design for Product Service Supportability (DfPSS)

Cedar Studio: an IDE supporting adaptive model-driven user interfaces for enterprise applications

Support tools are necessary for the adoption of model-driven engineering of adaptive user interfaces (UI). Enterprise applications in particular, require a tool that could be used by developers as well as I.T. personnel during all the development and post-development phases. An IDE that supports adaptive model-driven enterprise UIs could further promote the adoption of this approach. This paper describes Cedar Studio, our IDE for building adaptive model-driven UIs based on the CEDAR reference architecture for adaptive UIs. This IDE provides visual design and code editing tools for UI models and adaptive behavior. It is evaluated conceptually using a set of criteria from the literature and applied practically by devising example adaptive enterprise user interfaces

Designing Improved Sediment Transport Visualizations

Monitoring, or more commonly, modeling of sediment transport in the coastal environment is a critical task with relevance to coastline stability, beach erosion, tracking environmental contaminants, and safety of navigation. Increased intensity and regularity of storms such as Superstorm Sandy heighten the importance of our understanding of sediment transport processes. A weakness of current modeling capabilities is the ability to easily visualize the result in an intuitive manner. Many of the available visualization software packages display only a single variable at once, usually as a two-dimensional, plan-view cross-section. With such limited display capabilities, sophisticated 3D models are undermined in both the interpretation of results and dissemination of information to the public. Here we explore a subset of existing modeling capabilities (specifically, modeling scour around man-made structures) and visualization solutions, examine their shortcomings and present a design for a 4D visualization for sediment transport studies that is based on perceptually-focused data visualization research and recent and ongoing developments in multivariate displays. Vector and scalar fields are co-displayed, yet kept independently identifiable utilizing human perception\u27s separation of color, texture, and motion. Bathymetry, sediment grain-size distribution, and forcing hydrodynamics are a subset of the variables investigated for simultaneous representation. Direct interaction with field data is tested to support rapid validation of sediment transport model results. Our goal is a tight integration of both simulated data and real world observations to support analysis and simulation of the impact of major sediment transport events such as hurricanes. We unite modeled results and field observations within a geodatabase designed as an application schema of the Arc Marine Data Model. Our real-world focus is on the Redbird Artificial Reef Site, roughly 18 nautical miles offshor- Delaware Bay, Delaware, where repeated surveys have identified active scour and bedform migration in 27 m water depth amongst the more than 900 deliberately sunken subway cars and vessels. Coincidently collected high-resolution multibeam bathymetry, backscatter, and side-scan sonar data from surface and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) systems along with complementary sub-bottom, grab sample, bottom imagery, and wave and current (via ADCP) datasets provide the basis for analysis. This site is particularly attractive due to overlap with the Delaware Bay Operational Forecast System (DBOFS), a model that provides historical and forecast oceanographic data that can be tested in hindcast against significant changes observed at the site during Superstorm Sandy and in predicting future changes through small-scale modeling around the individual reef objects

Responsive and Personalized Web Layouts with Integer Programming

Over the past decade, responsive web design (RWD) has become the de facto standard for adapting web pages to a wide range of devices used for browsing. While RWD has improved the usability of web pages, it is not without drawbacks and limitations: designers and developers must manually design the web layouts for multiple screen sizes and implement associated adaptation rules, and its "one responsive design fits all"approach lacks support for personalization. This paper presents a novel approach for automated generation of responsive and personalized web layouts. Given an existing web page design and preferences related to design objectives, our integer programming -based optimizer generates a consistent set of web designs. Where relevant data is available, these can be further automatically personalized for the user and browsing device. The paper includes presentation of techniques for runtime adaptation of the designs generated into a fully responsive grid layout for web browsing. Results from our ratings-based online studies with end users (N = 86) and designers (N = 64) show that the proposed approach can automatically create high-quality responsive web layouts for a variety of real-world websites.Peer reviewe