Visual Interactive Systems for End-User Development: A Model-Based Design Methodology

Abstract

This paper is about the development of systems whose end users are professional people working in a specific domain (e.g., medicine, geology, mechanical engineering); they are expert in that domain, but not necessarily expert in nor even conversant with computer science. In several work organizations, end users need to tailor their software systems to better adapt them to their requirements and even to create or modify software artifacts. These are end-user development activities and are the focus of this paper. A model of the interaction between users and systems, which also takes into account their reciprocal coevolution during system usage, is discussed. This model is used to define a methodology aimed at designing software environments that allow end users to become designers of their own tools. The methodology is illustrated by discussing two experimental cases.

Empowering CH Experts to Produce IoT-enhanced Visits

“…EFESTO-5W is a Task-Automation System [3] that supports users without skills in computer programming to configure the behavior of smart objects by creating ECA rules [5]. The peculiarity of EFESTO-5W is the adoption of a model, called 5W, that introduces some specification constructs (Which, What, When, Where, Why) to build ECA rules coupling multiple events and conditions exposed by smart objects, and to define temporal and spatial constraints on rule activation and actions execution.…”

Model-Based Design Methodology for Blind Image Restoration

“…In the MBD [13][14], a system model is at the center of the development process, from requirements development, through design, implementation, and testing. The development flow by MBD is shown in Figure 6.…”

An Ontology-Based Approach to Product Customization

“…In designing the system prototype, we followed the SSW methodology, which foresees that all the involved stakeholders should actively participate to system design, being provided with suitable software environments, languages and tools to foster their personal and common reasoning about the development of systems that support end users' work [10], [11], [21]. These software environments are called Software Shaping Workshops (briefly, SSWs or workshops).…”

“…Thus, this approach fosters End-User Development and collaboration among all system stakeholders [22], [23]. To permit End-User Development, a new paradigm for the design of interactive systems is considered, called meta-design: professional developers act as meta-designers since, instead of developing the final interactive system, as in traditional design approach, they design software environments for the communities of stakeholders in the design team, who use such environments to collaborate in the whole life-cycle of an interactive system [11], [21], [24].…”