Mourad Abed

User Interfaces Modelling of Workflow Information Systems

In the recent years, the workflow system has increasingly gained considerable attention in the Information Systems community. It allows the integration of the various users to reach the objectives of the organization. The users operate their Information Systems through the User Interfaces (UI). Therefore there is a need to take into account the workflow model in the development process of the UI for an Information System. This paper has two objectives to attain. The first one is the proposition of a model driven approach to derive a plastic UIs of a Workflow Information System. The second objective lies in the use of Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) for the modelling of the interaction models (Task Model, Abstract User Interface, Concrete User Interface) with the aim of supplying more adapted models for a business expert who represents a main candidate in the success of the organization. It is through a case study applied to a real information system that our approach proves to be reliable.

Towards a user interface generation approach based on object oriented design and task model

This paper presents an approach of generating the user interface from the task model. Our work is situated in the course of approaches based on models. This approach called TOOD (Task Object Oriented Design) is based on a formal notation, which gives quantitative results that may be checked by designers and provide the possibility of performing mathematical verifications on the models. The modelling formalism is based on the joint use of the object approach and high level Petri nets. The TOOD method integrates different models (task model, user model, local model of the interface, abstract model of the interface, and model of the implementation) and their relations. An example, extracted from the air traffic control, is presented to illustrate TOOD methodology.

From the Formal Specifications of Users Tasks to the Automatic Generation of the HCI Specifications

This paper presents an approach to the construction of a task model of a method, named TOOD (Task Object Oriented Design), used for the development of an interactive system. This approach is based on a formal notation, which gives quantitative results which may be checked by designers and which provide the possibility of performing mathematical verifications on the models. The modelling formalism is based on the joint use of the object approach and high level Petri nets. The concepts borrowed from the object approach make it possible to describe the static aspects of tasks and the Petri nets enable the description of dynamics and behaviour. We also describe a software aid tool for the manipulation of these models, which allows the editing and the simulation of a task model. In order to facilitate thecomprehension of the method, an extremely simple example of the air traffic control will be given.

An MDE approach for user interface adaptation to the context of use

With the advent of new media and the delivery of recent means of communication, associated with the progress of networks, the circumstances of software use, as well as the skills and the preferences of the users who exploit them, are constantly varying. The adaptation of the User Interface (UI) has become a necessity due to the variety of the contexts of use. In this paper, we propose an approach based on models for the generation of adaptive UI. To reach this objective, we have made use of parameterized transformation principle in the framework of the Model Driven Engineering (MDE) for the transformation of the abstract interface into a concrete interface. The parameter of this transformation plays the role of the context of use. The paper develops two parts: meta-models for every constituent of the context of use and the adaptation rules.

Vers une démarche intégrée de conception-évaluation des systèmes Homme—Machine

ABSTRACT A major problem in research in Man—Machine Interactions is to develop the methods to model the tasks of an operator supervising a complex dynamic sytem. We propose a design and evaluation methodology which specify the steps wich lead to a system which is truly centred about operators task and the technical and ergonomics design and evaluation of the supervision system. The formula of an operators task is based on a confrontation between two models: a model of his possible behaviour and a model of his actual behaviour. The result is a model which explains the behaviour of operator. The model is described by graph theory (SADT and synchronized Petri nets) which gives a simple and formal tool directly usable by the designer. This conceptual model is then exploited for the specification of the displays. An example of application is given in the actual context of air trafic control work station.

Challenges for usability testing in ubiquitous systems

Ubiquitous computing expands both the place where the software system is used and the traditional way of interacting with its users. This happens since technologies should be fully integrated in the user daily activities in such way they become indistinguishable. So, in this scenario, new characteristics can emerge like calmness, transparency and context awareness that should be evaluated to assure the ubiquitous system quality. One of the methods used for evaluation of traditional systems is usability testing. Then, in this paper, we identify the main challenges to perform usability testing in ubiquitous systems based on an overview of the literature studies and on our own experience in testing this kind of systems. We also describe our ongoing work where we investigate usability testing to be designed considering context-awareness and to be supported by specific measurements to the ubiquitous computing scenario.

A software environment task object-oriented design (ETOOD)

This paper is intended to present an approach to the construction of a task model of method, named task object-oriented design (TOOD), used for the development of an interactive system. This approach is based on a formal notation, giving quantitative results which may be checked by designers and which provide the possibility of performing mathematical verifications on the models. The modeling formalism is based on the joint use of the object approach and of high-level Petri nets. The concepts borrowed from the object approach make it possible to describe the static aspect of tasks and the Petri nets enable the description of dynamics and behavior. We also describe a software aid tool for the manipulation of these models, which allow the editing of a task model. In order to facilitate comprehension of the method, a simple example of procedure used in missile firing management will be given.

An Ontology-Based Approach for User Interface Adaptation

With the evolution of a wide variety of mobile devices, computing is not limited to the desktop mode. The traditional User Interface (UI) is often not appropriate for ubiquitous computing and mobile applications and thus new challenges are emerging. The concept of Adaptive User Interface (AUI) is a new search direction in the field of human-machine interaction that aims at supporting the interaction between the user and the interface. In fact, AUI is an interface which adapts itself according to user’s profile, platform and environment. Most of the existing work in adaptation of UI relies on manual declarative rules definition using combinations of context criteria (user experience, user motivation, age, etc.) and the interface characteristics (density, color, etc.). However, there is no standard definition of context criteria based on their equivalents interface characteristics. In fact, the same interface attributes could be associated with many context criterion. This paper presents an ontology of UI adaptation process and how it is used for the personalization container of user interfaces by using SWRL rules. We evaluate our approach on AUIs of project called HandicraftWomen. It aims to support handcraft women in their business activities. The obtained results confirm the efficiency of our technique with an average of more than 77 % of precision and recall.

Fuzzy Logic Approach for Adaptive Systems Design

Adaptive system is a field in rapid development. Adaptation is an effective solution for reducing complexity when searching information. This article presents how to personalize user interface (UI) using fuzzy logic. Our approach is based on the definition of relations for selection of appropriate and not appropriate of UI components. These relations are based the degree of certainty about the meaning coincidence of metadata elements and user’ preferences. The proposed approach has been validated by applying it in e-learning field.

An MDE Parameterized Transformation for Adaptive User Interfaces

The expanding world of new communication and information technologies highlights the diversity of the platforms of interaction (PDA, mobile phone, computer, watch, etc). Hence, in 1999 Thevenin brought a new concept: the plasticity of interfaces [16]. The plasticity is defined as the capacity of a user interface to adapt to the context of use while preserving usability.