Enhancing User-Service Interaction through a Global User-Centric Approach to SOA

Considered as enablers of seamless application-to- application integration both within company boundaries and on a global scale, Web Services-based SOAs have traditionally focused on automating service-to-service collaboration. However, they have never featured a "face " to human users. This gap between human users and services still prevents enterprises from realizing how innovations at the SOA front-end help to make people more productive. And, ultimately, it hinders the emergence of a real Web of Services driven by a global, user-centric SOA. In this paper, we revisit the notion of SOA and analyze its major shortcomings with regard to the emergence of a Web of Services enhancing user-service interaction and increased service usability. We then elaborate on novel, currently emerging technologies that facilitate the establishment of the global mesh of interoperable user-centric services. A novel platform architecture is presented that builds on all the key technical enablers.