ServiceDesigner: a tool to help end-users become individual service providers

Pervasive and ubiquitous computing will fundamentally change the mode of interaction between humans and computers; instead of working with applications on a desktop computer we will interact with our environment through electronic services - anytime and anywhere. In this new modus operandi, specialized and personalized services will become much more important; the usual software house solutions may not be sufficient for individual demands. We propose that end-users themselves can be the service providers; the incentive to create services is grounded in each individual personal demand for well suited services and this demand will only increase when technology makes it possible to access services ubiquitously. Individual service provisioning requires three parts: a general platform for managing and accessing electronic services; simple but powerful tools to create the services; and the means to share services between users. Building on previous work developing sView, a personal service environment, this paper presents the second part -ServiceDesigner - a tool for creating new services for sView. ServiceDesigner, using Web services that expose the functions of Web sites as programmatically accessible components, lets end-users create personalized and functional electronic services that fit in the personal platform. With ServiceDesigner, Web services are directly available to users and finished services can also be shared with other users.