Multi-devices “Multiple” user interfaces: development models and research opportunities

Today, Internet-based appliances can allow a user to interact with the server-side services and information using different kinds of computing platforms including traditional office desktops, palmtops, as well as a large variety of wireless devices including mobile telephones, Personal Digital Assis...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of systems and software 2004-10, Vol.73 (2), p.287-300
Main Authors: Seffah, Ahmed, Forbrig, Peter, Javahery, Homa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Information management
Internet appliances
Software engineering
Studies
Systems integration
User interface
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Today, Internet-based appliances can allow a user to interact with the server-side services and information using different kinds of computing platforms including traditional office desktops, palmtops, as well as a large variety of wireless devices including mobile telephones, Personal Digital Assistants, and Pocket Computers. This technological context imposes new challenges in user interface software engineering, as it must run on different computing platforms accommodating the capabilities of various devices and the different contexts of use. Challenges are triggered also because of the universal access requirements for a diversity of users. The existing approaches of designing a single user interface using one computing platform do not adequately address the challenges of diversity, cross-platform consistency, universal accessibility and integration. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a new integrative framework for modeling, designing and evaluating multi-device user interfaces for the emerging generation of interactive systems. This paper begins by describing a set of constraints and characteristics intrinsic to multi-device user interfaces, and then by examining the impacts of these constraints on the specification, design and validation processes. Then, it discusses the research opportunities in important topics relevant to multi-device user interface development, including task and model-based, pattern-driven and device-independent development. We will highlight how research in these topics can contribute to the emergence of an integrative framework for Multiple-User Interface design and validation.
ISSN:0164-1212
1873-1228
DOI:10.1016/j.jss.2003.09.017