Quality in Ubiquitous Information System Design

International audienceInformation systems become ubiquitous. This opens a large spectrum of the possibilities for the end-users, but the design complexity is increasing. Therefore insuring quality during design is more than ever a challenge. In this article, we study this challenge by identifying the specificities of ubiquitous computing design and by considering the influence of these specificities on the quality of the various aspects of information system design (models, languages, processes and tools). For each aspect, we discuss its requirements on quality and present related works valuable for the definition and the evaluation of ubiquitous information system design quality

THEDRE: A Traceable Process for High Quality in Human Centred Computer Science Research

Computer scientists in information system encounter difficulties in leading research when they must consider human aspects, especially to evaluate these aspects. To achieve high quality research, they need to be guided in their process from their research question to their contributions. This article addresses the question of a traceable process to lead research in human-centred computer science. It proposes, THEDRE, a method to lead research with process and some quality indicators. This method integrates the elements to track research thanks to the integration of continuous quality improvement concepts (Deming’s wheel and indicators) in the research process. Our proposal has been designed from our participation in 29 works in human-centred computer science, and more particularly with 8 PHD students in information system. Also, THEDRE has been experimented during 2 workshops with PhD students and researchers

Efficient Embedded System Development: A Workbench for an Integrated Methodology

International audienceThe scientific foundations of embedded system development associate two disciplines that have largely grown on their own: computer science and electrical engineering. This superposition of two domains with little common ground raises a number of industrial issues in team work organisation, sound progress tracking, and cooperation between these different skills and cultures. In this paper we introduce HOE², an integrated MDE method for embedded system development that is organised around a set of limited yet powerful artefacts. We describe how HOE² can address the issues faced during development of mixed HW/SW systems and present the first version of a tool dedicated to its instrumentation

M2Flex: a process metamodel for flexibility at runtime

International audienceExisting design and development methods do not meet designers' and developers' needs. They are difficult to learn and to use; they are complex, sequential and rigid and thus far from being adapted, reliable and efficient. This paper presents M2Flex, a process metamodel for highly supporting flexibility. M2Flex is based on a recent definition of flexibility along four dimensions: (1) versatility, the ability of the metamodel to provide various equivalent choices, (2) granularability, the possibility of defining components with several levels of details, (3) completeness, the possibility of defining optional components and pre-defined reusable results and (4) distensibility, the capacity of the resulting process model to be extended or reduced at runtime. This paper shows how M2Flex is original by the flexibility it offers to designers and developers at runtime

Une approche générique pour l'adaptation dynamique des IHM au contexte

National audienceLes contextes d'usage se diversifient. Il devient alors nécessaire d'adapter les Interfaces Homme-Machine (IHM) au contexte. Dans cet article, nous adoptons une approche basée sur les modèles pour l'adaptation des IHM au contexte. Notre approche s'appuie sur une spécification générique et adaptable des modèles de tâches. Cette spécification considère simultanément les similarités et les variations exis-tantes entre différents contextes d'utilisation d'une même application. De tels modèles sont ensuite ajus-tés par transformation de modèles à l'instar de l'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles (IDM), à la situation d'utilisation

Flexibility in MDE for scaling up from simple applications to real case studies: illustration on a Nuclear Power Plant

International audienceModel Driven Engineering provides powerful solutions for the development of User Interfaces. However, concepts and techniques are difficult to master and to apply: the threshold of use is said to be high, making designers and developers reluctant to use it. This paper investigates process model flexibility as a solution. We present three kinds of flexibility for improving design and development process models: (1) variability for equivalent choices, (2) granularability for several levels of details, (3) completeness for possibly optional and pre-defined reusable components. Flexibility decreases the threshold of use by reusability of knowledge, know-how and pieces of code. We illustrate these forms of flexibility on an industrial case study from the nuclear power plant domain. We explain how they are implemented in FlexiLab, a running prototype based on OSGi. The innovation is twofold: on one hand, the operationalization of flexibility; on the other hand, the jump from simple applications to real case studies thanks to flexibility

Using Software Metrics in the Evaluation of a Conceptual Component Model

International audienceEvery interactive system has a functional part and an interactive part. However the software engineering and the human-computer-interaction communities work separately in terms of methods, models and tools, which induces a work overhead for integrating the results of these efforts, as well as increased inconsistency risks. We endeavour to treat this problem by proposing a design method, which couples the functional kernel and the interaction design. In particular, this method proposes a specific way of structuring the interaction and the business spaces. The structure is based on components called Symphony Objects. In this article, we attempt to evaluate the technical aspect of a Symphony Object model issued from the method by measuring its implementations with software metrics

Self-Explanatory User Interfaces by Model-Driven Engineering

International audienceModern User Interfaces (UI) must deal with the increasing complexity of applications as well as new features such as the capacity of UIs to be dynamically adapted to the con- text of use. The complexity does not necessarily imply a better quality. Thus, it becomes necessary to make users un- derstand the UIs. This paper describes an on-going research about Self-Explanatory User Interfaces (SE-UI) by Model- Driven Engineering (MDE). Self-explanation makes refer- ence to the capacity of a UI to provide the end-user with information about its rationale (which is the purpose of the UI), its design rationale (why is the UI structured into this set of workspaces?, what's the purpose of this button?), its current state (why is the menu disabled?) as well as the evo- lution of the state (how can I enable this feature?). Explana- tions are provided by embedded models. We explore model- driven engineering to understand why and how this approach can lead us to overcome shortcomings of UI quality success- fully

Using Software Metrics in the Evaluation of a Conceptual Component Model

International audienceEvery interactive system has a functional part and an interactive part. However the software engineering and the human-computer-interaction communities work separately in terms of methods, models and tools, which induces a work overhead for integrating the results of these efforts, as well as increased inconsistency risks. We endeavour to treat this problem by proposing a design method, which couples the functional kernel and the interaction design. In particular, this method proposes a specific way of structuring the interaction and the business spaces. The structure is based on components called Symphony Objects. In this article, we attempt to evaluate the technical aspect of a Symphony Object model issued from the method by measuring its implementations with software metrics

Xplain: an Editor for building Self-Explanatory User Interfaces by Model-Driven Engineering

International audienceModern User Interfaces (UI) must deal with the increasing complexity of applications in terms of functionality as well as new properties as plasticity. The plasticity of a UI denotes its capacity of adaptation to the context of use while preserving its quality. The efforts in plasticity have focused on the (meta) modeling of the UI, but the quality remains uncovered. This paper describes an on-going research that studies a method to develop Self-Explanatory User Interfaces as well as an editor that implements this method. Self-explanation makes reference to the capacity of a UI to provide the end-user with information about its rationale (which is the purpose of the UI), its design rationale (why is the UI structured into this set of workspaces?, what's the purpose of this button?), its current state (why is the menu disabled?) as well as the evolution of the state (how can I enable this feature?). Explanations are provided by embedded models