The demand for software in Ubiquitous Computing, in which access to applications occurs anywhere, anytime and from different devices, has raised new challenges for Software Engineering. One of these challenges is related to the adaptation of the contents of an application to the numerous devices that can access it in distinct contexts. Another challenge is related to the building of rich interfaces with multimedia content, asynchronous communication and other features that characterize Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Searching for solutions focused on these challenges, a model-driven process for building rich interfaces of context-sensitive ubiquitous applications has been developed. The process, which is based on the conceptions of Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM), emphasizes the modeling reuse from a rich interface components metamodel. This metamodel provides a generic infrastructure for developing rich interfaces of applications, focusing on model-level reuse and on code generation for different Ubiquitous Computing platforms. In addition, the metamodel allows that the interface models are built by using the terms of rich interface domain, which facilitates the communication between users and developers.

1. FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF SÃO CARLOS
CENTER OF SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
Carlos Eduardo Cirilo
Antonio Francisco do Prado
Wanderley L. de Souza
Luciana Aparecida Martinez Zaina
MODEL DRIVEN RICHUBI - A MODEL
DRIVEN PROCESS FOR BUILDING RICH
INTERFACES OF CONTEXT-SENSITIVE
UBIQUITOUS APPLICATIONS
Software Engineering
Group
1
Available in: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1878450.1878485

2. 2
MOTIVATION
 Rich interfaces
• The main proposal is to
provide the user with a rich
interaction
o Rich interface
components: multimedia,
drag & drop, sliding panels,
auto-completion fields,
online spreadsheets, etc...
• Better responsiveness and
performance
o Asynchronous
communication
o Avoid unnecessary page
reloads
• Better user interaction
(facilitates and motivates)

3. 3
MOTIVATION
 Ubiquitous Computing
Computing has enabled users easy access to services and
applications from anywhere, anytime, and using any device.
 Heterogeneity of access devices
 Need to adapt applications’ interfaces

4. 4
GOALS OF THIS PAPER
 To define a model-driven process (Model Driven RichUbi)
 Support to the development of rich interfaces of context-
sensitive ubiquitous applications
 Based on the conceptions of Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM)
 Interfaces modeling based on a rich interface components
metamodel
 Hides low level details
 Facilitates communication between users and developers
 Users can understand technical issues better and suggest
improvements directly on the conceptual level
 Partial code generation to different platforms
 Development of code generators and dynamic content adapters

5. 5
CONCEPTS
 Model-Driven Development.
Interface adaptation strategies.

6. 6
MODEL-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT
 Focuses on models instead of source code
 Raises the level of abstraction during the development
 Applies appropriate model-to-code (M2C) transformations to
generate the entire or most of the code for different platforms
The methodology to user interface:
 Model-Based User Interface Development :
 Definition of the different aspects of user interfaces
(presentation, dialog, user tasks structure) in an abstract
way, regardless the implementation platform

7. 7
MODEL-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT
Domain Specific Modeling (DSM)
 Models are built by using Domain Specific Languages
(DSLs), which can be defined through metamodels that
represent the knowledge of a particular domain
 Reduces the effort in translating the concepts of problem
domain into concepts of the solution domain
 The interface models are created in a more intuitive way
and are less associated with the technical details of
implementation

8. 8
INTERFACE ADAPTATION
STRATEGIES

9. 9
INTERFACE ADAPTATION
STRATEGIES

10. 10
MODEL DRIVEN RICHUBI
 MDD (DSM) Rich Interfaces
Focuses on rich interface domain in order to support the
development of rich interfaces for different platforms
 Modeling is performed from a rich interface components
metamodel
 Employs a hybrid adaptation strategy:
 Requirements are mapped into a few generic interface
versions, each being appropriate for a particular group of
devices (static adaptation)
 Dynamic content adapters allow, at runtime, to select the
version that best fits the device profile, and to adapt the
code snippets to meet the characteristics of the access
device (dynamic adaptation)

11. 11
MODEL DRIVEN RICHUBI
 Process Overview

12. 12
DOMAIN ENGINEERING
 Construction of the Rich Interface Components Metamodel
 The requirements of rich interface domain are elicited, specified,
analyzed and represented in a rich interface components metamodel
Interface components
identified in
environments of Web
development
(Dreamweaver, MS
Visual Studio)

13. 13
DOMAIN ENGINEERING
 Construction of the Model to Code Transformations
 The transformations that will be applied to the interface models for
code generation during the AE step are built
Construction of Content Adapters
 Building of the content adapters that will accomplish the dynamic
adaptation of the interface components according to the device profile
during the application execution

14. 14
MODEL DRIVEN RICHUBI
 Process Overview

15. 15
APPLICATION ENGINEERING
 Ubiquitous applications with rich interfaces are built by reusing the
artifacts produced in the DE
 Follows the Analysis, Design, Implementation and Testing disciplines
 Case Study: Web module of the Ambulance Space Positioning System
(ASPS)
 ASPS emerged from an experimental study which aimed at
investigating the use of the signals from GSM antennas for the
location of people or objects
 ASPS allows the fleet management team to monitor the mobility of
the ambulances

16. 16
APPLICATION ENGINEERING
 Design
 ASPS specifications refinement
 Modeling of the application interfaces as an instance of the
metamodel

17. 17
APPLICATION ENGINEERING
 Implementation and Testing
 Partial code generation from modeling by using the M2C
transformations
 Content adapter reuse

18. 18
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER
WORK
 Main contributions
 Study and research on the use of DSM for building rich interfaces of
context-sensitive ubiquitous applications;
 Specification of a rich interface components metamodel and M2C
transformations to support the modeling and code generation for
different platforms; and
 Content adaptation carried out in a hybrid fashion with the use of
context.
 Future Work
 Addition of new rich interface components to the metamodel;
 Construction of a graphical notation for the metamodel in order to
turn modeling more user-friendly; and
 Optimizations in the M2C transformations that allow further
automation of code generation.

19. 19
Thank you!
Carlos E. Cirilo
carlos_cirilo@dc.ufscar.br
Antonio F. Prado
prado@dc.ufscar.br
Luciana A. M. Zaina
lzaina@ufscar.br
http://www.ges.dc.ufscar.br
Wanderley L. de Souza
desouza@dc.ufscar.br