Marc Seissler

PEICS: towards HCI patterns into engineering of interactive systems

Despite intense research activities in the last years, HCI patterns still lack in a standardized description and organization. This makes it difficult for the developers to identify the relevant patterns for solving a problem as well as to apply them accordingly to the problem context. To fully benefit from HCI patterns within the engineering of interactive computer systems they have to be prepared for integration into a model-based user interface development process. This workshop on Pattern-driven Engineering of Interactive Computer Systems (PEICS) focuses on bringing together various research approaches in order to be conjointly conductive to the state of the art. We present contributions according to semantics, formalization, languages, support, research directions as well as tools.

Using HCI Patterns within the Model-Based Development of Run-Time Adaptive User Interfaces

Abstract Ubiquitous information access within intelligent environments – like the SmartFactoryKL – will become more and more important in everyday life. Model-based User Interface Development (MBUID) processes can help to handle the complexity emerging from the numerous interaction devices and usage scenarios, facilitating run-time adaption of the user interface to the users’ needs and preferences. To improve the usability of the user interfaces the designers’ knowledge has to be formalized and integrated into the generation process. HCI patterns are a promising approach for representing solutions for reoccurring design problems in an abstract, machine processable format which can be used to improve the model-based development of user interfaces, while still having a lack of formalization, organization and tool support. In our presented approach, we show the feasibility of the integration of HCI patterns (layout as well as task patterns) within an established automatic user interface generation process, which thereby supports the separation between content and visualization (separation of concern) within MBUID.

Pattern-driven engineering of interactive computing systems (PEICS)

Since almost over one decade, patterns have been gaining a lot of interest in the domain of Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) engineering. It is generally agreed upon that patterns can be used to facilitate the exchange of best practices and knowledge between the interdisciplinary team members, involved in interactive systems design process. Despite intense research activities in the last years, HCI patterns still lack in a standardized description and organization. This makes it difficult for the developers to identify the relevant patterns for solving a problem as well as to apply them accordingly to the problem context. To fully benefit from HCI patterns within the engineering of interactive computer systems they have to be prepared for integration into a model-based user interface development process. Instead of guiding and advising the UI developers of which solution should be applied, HCI patterns should enable the easy reuse of already designed model or code fragments. To enable the integration of HCI patterns in the model-based development process the informal textual, or graphical notation of HCI patterns has to be overcome. HCI patterns have to support the formal description of their solution-part, which allows the direct integration of the solution-parts into the different models, like task-, dialog- and presentation-model.

Automatic adaptation of user workflows within model-based user interface generation during runtime on the example of the smartmote

Model-based universal interaction devices are already capable to react on contextual changes by automatically adapting the user interface, but without considering the usefulness of the resulting user interface. Often tasks cannot be executed any more or execution orders will result in dead locks caused by unavailable functionality. We present our approach of investigating this property of adapted models based on the example of the SmartMote in our living lab the SmartFactoryKL. Given the task description of the user interaction we determine a dialog model in terms of a state machine - which is necessary in our process of user interface generation - to determine possible execution orders leading to the accept state of this state machine. Using these execution orders the initial task model can be adapted, all misleading tasks can be removed and the resulting user interface will only offer valid user interactions.

Improving the flexibility of model transformations in the model-based development of interactive systems

This paper presents an approach that adds flexibility in the varieties of user interfaces that can be generated by processes of model-based user interface development. This approach is used at design time. Ideas from this approach have been extended for use at runtime and have been applied to SmartMote, a universal interaction device for industrial environments.

PEICS: HCI patterns for the design of interactive systems

In this paper, we summarize the results of the Pattern Driven Engineering of Interactive Computing Systems (PEICS) which took place at the 3rd ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS) 2011.

A concept for a first communication initiation for ambient intelligent industrial environments

This paper presents a concept for an intuitive way of establishing physical communication connections between industrial field devices and an universal control device that supports several communication standards. It aims to stimulate the discussion about how a first communication initiation in ad-hoc linked environments has to look like. Key of the presented concept is a reference model that specifies all communication relevant information of a field device, attaching this information to the device, using an inexpensive passive data carrier. Furthermore, this reference model references data like multi-user behavior and user-rights, enabling a flexible user-centered device interaction which satisfies the needs of an industrial environment. With such a reference model most AMI technologies will be much more easy to use in ad-hoc linked environments. The concept presented in this paper is being tested and evaluated in the SmartFactoryKL, the intelligent factory of the future.