A Tool Support for the Adaptation of User Interfaces based on a Business Rules Management System

Abstract:

Human-computer interfaces play a key role in the design of information system, as they link the system with its end-users, allowing information exchange and improving communication. Nowadays, application increasingly become various and complex, they aim at multiple, heterogeneous and dynamic contexts of use examined according three facets: the end-users of the interactive system, the platform  with which users have to perform their interactive tasks and the physical environment where they are interacting Nevertheless, users no longer wish to adapt themselves to this heterogeneity of the interaction situations; they yet want their systems to be adapted. Thus, with regard  to the requirements to which the multiplicity of technologies is added, providing User interfaces (UIs) with adaptation capabilities is become more and more an important issue. We address these issues by proposing a Model-Driven Engineering approach for semi-automatic generation of context-dependent UIs based on a Business Rules Management System (BRMS) as an adaption engine. Our approach is supported by a conceptual framework and a graphical tool for modeling context situations, editing adaption rules and launching  the adaption process.