Developing adaptable user interfaces for component-based systems

Software components are becoming increasingly popular design and implementation technologies that can be plugged and played to provide user-enhanceable software. However, developing software components with user interfaces that can be adapted to diverse reuse situations is challenging. Examples of such adaptations include extending, composing and reconfiguring multiple component user interfaces, and adapting component user interfaces to particular user preferences, roles and subtasks. We describe our recent work in facilitating such adaptation via the concept of user interface aspects, which support effective component user interface design and realisation using an extended, component-based software architecture.     

Systems Development Strategy: A Component Based Approach, The Architecture

An architecture for building laboratory automation systems was developed using the component-based framework. The requirements to build a flexible and adaptable automation system were exemplified through the architectural design process. Existing tools and technologies facilitated the development of this scalable architecture. Several design patterns were used to model this architecture. The influence of these patterns on systems design and the impact of Unified Modeling Language on component and interface design was explored. Integration of the system components with the peripheral components to build an automated system is discussed with emphasis on run-time configuration and component reuse.     

Collaborative telemedicine for interactive multiuser segmentation of volumetric medical images

Telemedicine has evolved rapidly in recent years to enable unprecedented access to digital medical data, such as with networked image distribution/sharing and online (distant) collaborative diagnosis, largely due to the advances in telecommunication and multimedia technologies. However, interactive collaboration systems which control editing of an object among multiple users are often limited to a simple “locking” mechanism based on a conventional client/server architecture, where only one user edits the object which is located in a specific server, while all other users become viewers. Such systems fail to provide the needs of a modern day telemedicine applications that demand simultaneous editing of the medical data distributed in diverse local sites. In this study, we introduce a novel system for telemedicine applications, with its application to an interactive segmentation of volumetric medical images. We innovate by proposing a collaborative mechanism with a scalable data sharing architecture which makes users interactively edit on a single shared image scattered in local sites, thus enabling collaborative editing for, e.g., collaborative diagnosis, teaching, and training. We demonstrate our collaborative telemedicine mechanism with a prototype image editing system developed and evaluated with a user case study. Our result suggests that the ability for collaborative editing in a telemedicine context can be of great benefit and hold promising potential for further research.     

Agent-based management of support systems for distributed brainstorming

In this paper, we describe the design and the management of an agent-based system that supports distributed brainstorming activities. The support system is a highly coordinated IoT application composed of many locally installed interface devices, multimedia communication functions, and cloud functions that process application logic and store meeting data. The system is designed to support a variety of brainstorming sessions, so its functionalities must be modifiable and enable the system to be adapted to different environments and user requirements without any loss of performance. System accessibility should be also ensured from any location for any user. These constraints require a flexible and usable support system.We further discuss the aspects of flexibility and usability that are important in a support system for distributed brainstorming, from which we propose a conceptual schema for flexible and usable support systems. To realize this schema, we present a resource-oriented architecture that can modify the brainstorming support system’s structure and functions. Flexibility is achieved thanks to an agent-based system that manages resources and operates on them according to users’ requests.We also describe the system architecture, which is organized around a set of channels dedicated to different services proposed to the users. We present in detail a video channel that ensures user awareness during synchronized activities. We then conduct several experiments verifying the usability of important channels in the architecture and present the results of these experiments.Finally, we discuss experimental scenarios that show how the system owes its adaptability to management based on an agent organization that supports distributed brainstorming and other activities.     

Flexible User Interfaces for Group Collaboration

Flexible user interfaces that can be customized to meet the needs of the task at hand are particularly important for telecollaboration. This article presents the design and implementation of a user interface for DISCIPLE, a platform-independent telecollaboration framework. DISCIPLE supports sharing of Java components that are imported into the shared workspace at run-time and can be interconnected into more complex components. As a result, run-time interconnection of various components allows user tailoring of the human-computer interface. Software architecture for customization of both a group-level and application-level interfaces is presented, with interface components that are loadable on demand. The architecture integrates the sensory modalities of speech, sight, and touch. Instead of imposing one "right" solution onto users, the framework lets users tailor the user interface that best suits their needs. Finally, laboratory experience with DISCIPLE tested on a variety of applications with the framework is discussed along with future research directions.     

Direct activation: a concept to encourage tailoring activities

The design of the user interface plays a major role in encouraging users to tailor an application. This paper focuses on a particular design issue. The question is how to support users in finding those functions which allow tailoring of an application. An empirical investigation shows that this is a major problem when users try to tailor applications. In order to tackle this problem the concept of direct activation is developed, which simplifies the finding of a tailoring function at the moment a tailorable function needs to be modified. To evaluate the effectiveness of the concept of direct activation in supporting tailoring activities, the concept has been implemented and an evaluation study carried out. The results of this study support the assumption that direct activation eases tailoring activities. Finally, the potentials and limitations of this concept are discussed.     

Direct activation: A concept to encourage tailoring activities

The design of the user interface plays a major role in encouraging users to tailor an application. This paper focuses on a particular design issue. The question is how to support users in finding those functions which allow tailoring of an application. An empirical investigation shows that this is a major problem when users try to tailor applications. In order to tackle this problem the concept of direct activation is developed, which simplifies the finding of a tailoring function at the moment a tailorable function needs to be modified. To evaluate the effectiveness of the concept of direct activation in supporting tailoring activities, the concept has been implemented and an evaluation study carried out. The results of this study support the assumption that direct activation eases tailoring activities. Finally, the potentials and limitations of this concept are discussed.     

Heuristics-based mediation for building smart architectures at run-time

Smart architectures are increasingly being used in current software development. Smart user interfaces, smart homes, or smart buildings are becoming common examples in the new era of smart cities. Software architectures usually related to these domains need to be adapted and reconfigured at run-time, for example, to provide new services, react to user interaction, or due to changes decided from the business logic of the application. Component-based techniques are a suitable way to carry out this kind of adaptation, as dynamic reconfiguration operations can be applied to the architecture. In this paper, we address run-time generation of component-based applications, taking the abstract definitions of their architecture as a reference, in addition to a set of available components. The process calculates the best configuration of components from the abstract definition by applying a trading approach based on an adapted A* algorithm. This algorithm uses heuristics based on syntactic and semantic information obtained from the component definitions. A case study related to mashup user interfaces formed by coarse-grained components is also explained. In short, the results show the usefulness of heuristics and suitable execution times for building the best configurations.     

Design of Extensible Component-Based Groupware

Tailoring is identified as a key requirement for CSCW applications. One major tailoring mechanism is the extensionof an application at run-time to change its behavior.This article shows how synchronous CSCW component-based applicationscan be designed to be extensible at run-time. We propose to split the act of tailoring into two steps: thedesign-time customization of new components in visual builder tools and their insertion into the running application. Thus the customization tool is not required to be part of the application.This article presents a new design pattern for extensibility andgives several examples based on that pattern. With the help of the pattern extensible application frameworks can besystematically created from a non-extensible application design. The different possibilities to place insertionpoints into the application design are discussed with respect to flexibility and ease of deployment. Finally, wepresent the advantages and limitations of this approach.     

Experiences developing architectures for realizing thin‐client diagram editing tools

Diagram‐centric applications such as software design tools, project planning tools and business process modelling tools are usually ‘thick‐client’ applications running as stand‐alone desktop applications. There are several advantages to providing such design tools as Web‐based or even PDA‐ and mobile‐phone‐based applications. These include ease of access and upgrade, provision of collaborative work support and Web‐based integration with other applications. However, building such thin‐client diagram editing tools is very challenging. We have developed several thin‐client diagram editing applications realized as a set of plug‐in extensions to a meta‐tool for visual design environment development. In this paper, we discuss key user interaction and software architecture issues, illustrate examples of interacting with our thin‐client diagram editing tools, describe our design and implementation approaches, and present the results of several different evaluations of the resultant applications. Our experiences will be useful for those interested in developing their own thin‐client diagram editing architectures and applications. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Task-driven automated component deployment for ambient intelligence environments

This article presents a strategy for deploying component-based applications gradually in order to match the functionality of pervasive computing applications onto the current needs of the user. We establish this deployment strategy by linking component composition models with task models at design-time, from which a run-time deployment plan is deduced. Enhanced with a Markov model, this deployment plan is able to drive a component life cycle manager to anticipate future deployments. The result is a seamless integration of pervasive computing applications with the user’s tasks, guaranteeing the availability of the required functionality without wasting computing resources on components that are not currently needed.     

From user interface design to the support of intelligent and adaptive interfaces: an overhaul of user interface software infrastracture

Research on adaptive interfaces in the past has lacked support from user interface tools which allow interfaces to be easily created and modified. Also, current user interface tools provide no support for user models which can collect task-oriented information about users. Developing an adaptive interface requires a user model and an adaptation strategy. It also, however, requires a user interface which can be adapted. The latter task is often time-consuming, especially in relation to more sophisticated user interfaces.

The paper presents a user interface design environment, UIDE, which has a different software infrastracture. Designers use high-level specifications to create a model of an application and links from the application to various interface components. The model is the heart of all the design and run-time support in UIDE, including automatic dialog sequencing and help generation. UIDE provides automatic support for collecting task-oriented information about users, by the use of its high-level specifications in its application model as a basic construct for a user model. Some examples of adaptive interfaces and adaptive help are presented that use the information that is collectable in UIDE.     

Ontological user modelling and semantic rule-based reasoning for personalisation of Help-On-Demand services in pervasive environments

Existing context-aware applications are limited in their support of user personalisation. Nevertheless, the increase in the use of context-aware technologies has sparked the growth in assistive applications resulting in a need to enable adaptation to reflect the changes in user behaviours. This paper introduces a systematic approach to service personalisation for mobile users in pervasive environments and presents a service-oriented distributed system architecture. The developed approach makes use of semantic technologies for user modelling and personalisation reasoning. In the paper we characterise user behaviours and needs in pervasive environments upon which ontological user models are created with special emphasis being placed on ontological modelling of dynamic and adaptive user profiles. We develop a rule-based personalisation mechanism that exploits semantic web rule mark-up language for rule design and a combination of semantic and rule-based reasoning for personalisation. We use two case studies focusing on providing personalised travel assistance for people using Help-on-Demand services deployed on a smart-phone to contextualise the discussions within the paper. The proposed approach is implemented in a prototype system, which includes Help-on-Demand services, content management services, user models and personalisation mechanisms in addition to application specific rules. Experiments have been designed and conducted to test and evaluate the approach with initial results demonstrating the functionality of the approach.     

Towards a General Component Model for Web-Based Applications

The cost effective development of web applications is perhaps one of the most challenging areas of software engineering today. Not only are the problems to be solved, and the solution technologies to be used, in web application development among the most rapidly changing in the software industry, but the business pressures of cost, quality and time-to-market are among the most extreme. Web application development therefore has potentially the most to gain from software reuse approaches that can offer a greater return on development time than traditional approaches. However, simply combining ideas from these reuse paradigms and traditional web development technologies in ad-hoc ways will not result in sustainable improvements. In this paper we describe a systematic way of combining the benefits of component-based development and model driven architectures, two important reuse approaches, to support the cost effective development and maintenance of web applications. After first defining a suitably abstract component-model, the paper explains how component architectures can be systematically and rigorously modeled using UML. It then describes a powerful technique, known as stratification, for separating the various cross cutting aspects of a web application such that a suitable platform specific architecture can be traceably generated. Finally, the paper introduces a technique for increasing the trustworthiness of components by giving them the capability to check their deployment environment at run-time.     

基于AJAX的Web应用构件组装技术及工具

基于构件的软件开发方式能够有效提高Web应用的开发效率,它所涵盖的构件组装技术涉及到Web应用的前端页面与后端业务逻辑或第三方服务之间的组合。在分析Web应用的构件类型及其组装方式的基础上,提出了一套基于AJAX的Web应用构件组装技术,该技术尤其关注于前端页面构件与后端业务构件以及Web Service构件之间的自动化组装,包含两种具体的组装实现模式,即采用jQuery调用Servlet的实现模式以及采用DWR技术的实现模式,它们为页面构件提供其与服务端构件交互的能力。另外,这两种组装模式已分别实现为两套在线的Web应用构件组装工具,均支持用户通过图形化的方式定义构件的连接关系,并根据不同模式自动组合构件实体单元来生成Web应用系统。以一个实验性选课网站作为应用开发实例,以验证技术与工具的有用性。     

OGITO,an Open Geospatial Interactive Tool to support collaborative spatial planning with a maptable

Maptables are increasingly used to support collaborative spatial planning processes. Despite the proven benefits and claimed potential of using a maptable in such processes, software applications specifically designed for this device are still scarce. Moreover, often-used applications do not fully exploit the touch functionality of a maptable, or have low usability. To address this gap, we developed and evaluated the Open Geospatial Interactive TOol (OGITO), an open-source software application designed to support collaborative spatial planning processes with a maptable. To develop such tool, we combined human-centred design and Agile software development principles in a co-design effort with intended users and stakeholders. Through iterative development cycles and feedback from users, OGITO was evolved until it satisfied user expectations. In a case study on community mapping in Sumatra, Indonesia, a sample of users evaluated OGITO's usability. Case study participants reported high satisfaction with this tool for the tasks and context given. Our research shows the added value of iterative development and user feedback for improving and further development of the tool's usability and functionality.     

Reflections on interdisciplinary team development for the design of a platform for computer supported collaborative play

The Constructed Narratives project has been designed for use in public spaces where there is the opportunity for individuals and groups of people, who are not acquainted with each other, to encounter the game and subsequently each other. The goal is to provide a platform that supports discourse in environments where ‘keeping comfortable distance’ between oneself and others is the norm. The system framework developed for this project can be applied for use in computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL), and collaborative design activities in the tradition of computer supported collaborative work (CSCW). The current domain explored in the Constructed Narratives project is computer systems designed to enable shared experience through play, or computer supported collaborative play (CSCP). This paper examines the learner-centred design methodologies used for the development of the physical artifacts and underlying software and hardware system architecture for the Constructed Narratives project. The design methodology demonstrates how an interdisciplinary team of artists, designers, and technologists can exploit the opportunities inherent in this ‘symmetry of ignorance’ to find solutions for multiple wicked design problems that can arise during the development of an integrated software and hardware system.     

vCOM: Electronic commerce in a collaborative virtual world

Existing e-commerce applications on the web provide the users a relatively simple, browser-based interface to access available products. Customers are not provided with the same shopping experience as they would in an actual store or mall. This experience, however, can be achieved by the creation of a virtual shopping mall environment, simulating most of the actual shopping user interactions. The virtual mall brings together the services and products of various vendors. Users can navigate through the virtual shopping malls, adding items of interest into a virtual shopping cart, and perform searches assisted by ‘intelligent agents’. A Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) can realize a sophisticated virtual shopping application. In such a CVE, a large number of potential users may interact with each other. In this paper, vCOM, a VRML and Java3D-based prototype is presented, which permits users to navigate around virtual e-commerce worlds and perform collaborative shopping and intelligent searches with the assistance of software agents, in order to find the products and services of interest to them. They can then negotiate with sales agents to bargain for the best possible price and then make a secure buying transaction. The virtual mall prototype also allows the user to communicate with an ‘intelligent shopping assistant’ using simple voice commands. This assistant interacts with the shopper using voice synthesis and helps him/her use the interface to efficiently navigate in the mall. Real-time interactions between the entities in this shared environment are implemented over the High Level Architecture (HLA), an IEEE standard for distributed simulations and modeling. The paper focuses on user interface design, collaborative e-commerce through HLA and multi-agent architecture.     

TheEvolve project: Component-based tailorability for CSCW applications

Tailorability is generally regarded as a key property of groupware systems owing to the dynamics and differentiation of cooperative work. This article investigates the use of software components as a generic architectural concept for designing tailorable groupware applications. First, the issues raised by this approach are discussed in the context of an exploratory experiment during which component-based tailorability was applied to a real tailoring problem in thePoliTeam project. The experiment's results led us to concentrate on questions concerning the support of distributed CSCW applications. As a consequence, we have developed theEvolve platform, whose design concepts are described. Furthermore, a concrete example for the application of the approach to the design of a tailorable distributed coordination tool is given. We discuss related work, summarise the current state of the component-based tailorability approach and propose venues of further research.