Laurent Guittet

Assessment of Object Use for Task Modeling

Past research in task modeling suggests the need to introduce objects when using task models for the design of interactive applications. Objects are however rarely included in the task model notations and formalisms. Furthermore, when part of the formalism, their definition is usually informal; and the supporting tool does not generally take them into account for simulation. K-MADe is the first tool that fully uses objects for condition evaluations during task model simulation. This paper presents an evaluation investigating the usage of formal objects with K-MADe. The results show that whilst object concepts seem to be essential in the task model process, their usage and manipulation is not easy.

Generating interactive applications from task models: a hard challenge

Since early ergonomics, notations have been created focusing on the activities, jobs and task descriptions. However, the development of a wide variety of devices led to the generation of different interfaces from the same description of the tasks. The generation of complete current interfaces needs different types of information, some of which are not represented in usual task models. The goal of this paper is to present information that seems to be lacking in the task models.

Hierarchical Structure: A Step for Jointly Designing Interactive Software Dialog and Task Model

In order to design interactive applications, the first step is usually the definition of user needs. While performing this step, activities may be modeled using task models. Some task model components express scheduling information that describes the task dynamics. According to a model-based approach, the dynamics of applications (i.e.: the dialog) can be formalized using a dialog model. Several approaches seek to exploit the task model information to perform the dialog model. This paper aims to show that the use of the hierarchical dialog model facilitates its design according to task model information during the whole iterative design process.

Formal Verification and Validation of Interactive Systems Specifications

This paper proposes a development process for interactive systems based both on verification and validation methods. Our approach is formal and use at first the B Method. We show in this paper how formal B specifications can be derived from informal requirements in the informal notation UAN. Then, these B specifications are validated using the data oriented specification language EXPRESS. Several scenarios can be tested against these EXPRESS

Prototypage basé sur les modèles de tâches: une étude pilote

Task models, which have been designed for activity modeling, are used in different ways, for interactive system evaluation or design. In this work, we present a pilot study on task-based prototyping. We show how leaning on task models may make collaborative work easier between business experts and software designers, for identifying precise required functionalities.

Vérification de cohérence entre modèles de tâches et de dialogue en conception centrée-utilisateur

Model-based approach usage is increasing in interactive application design. Models are used to express the viewpoints of every design participant (particularly the user). This paper presents an approach for checking consistency between task models and dialog models during iterative application design. At the end, an example of the proposed approach is presented. It is based on the K-MAD task model, the IH dialog model (hierarchical interactors) and the use of Praxis (on witch rules are expressed).

Learn what I do

In the past twenty years, many works have dealt with programming by demonstration. They have tried to make an end-user interactively program repetitive task, spying his/her actions while he/she is performing it. Though the approach seems relevant, no commercial software uses it. The main reason is that it is very difficult for a software designer to integrate Programming by Example concepts: recording, generalizing and replaying user interactions is far from easy. However, another approach consists in using an external system, which works on the user graphical interactions, and which is able to spy any application. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for such a system to successfully generalise user actions, because it does not understand their meaning, with respect to the functional core. This paper deals with a new method that consists in making the user fill the previous semantic gap, describing his/her interaction and the interface state meanings.

Designing Functional Specifications for Complex Systems

For designing complex and sociotechnical System that strongly interact with humans e.g., a ship is a large sociotechnical system. systems, designers are in charge of the functional specification because they have an operational expert knowledge. However, these experts do not usually master the programming knowledge of those who design supervision systems. Complex and sociotechnical systems include supervision systems which comprise monitoring interfaces and associated control codes. In this paper we propose an approach that facilitates functional specification of supervision systems. This approach aims at exploiting Example Based Programming EBP to propose a specification tool, which contains a generalization module and an interface generation module. Our tool allows experts who are acting as non-professional software developers to describe high level system functional services from elementary services. These functional services contain elementary interactions and configuration data. Thus, the expert, involved in coding, avoids a lot of errors related to the interpretation of the functional specifications. Our aim is to capture expert knowledge on the system being designed in order to have verified and validated functional specifications, without having to train experts in formal methods.

Anaxagore, an example of model-driven engineering for industrial supervision

For several years, MDE (Model Driven Engineering) has been increasing in Human Computer Interaction domain. It is particularly suitable for designing supervision software for sociotechnical and reconfigurable systems. In this article, we describe Anaxagore, an IDM based tool, which allows complete generation of interactive supervision software from business oriented synoptic descriptions.

Comparaison de différentes approches de simulation dans les modèles de tâches

Task models draw benefit from a growing interest for interactive system design. One of the objectives of these models is to improve communication within the design teams and with users. Simulation tools present dynamically a task model allowing users to make execution choices. However, few studies have demonstrated the benefits of these tools. We study the impact of the several presentations provided by simulation tools to understand their impact on the understanding of task models. This study shows that a step-by-step presentation without showing the task tree allows a better understanding of the activity and the modeled concepts.