A UI-DSPL Approach for the Development of Context-Adaptable User Interfaces

Unlike adaptive interfaces which use sensors to adapt themselves, adaptable interfaces need the intervention of end users to adapt their different aspects according to user requirements. These requirements are commonly expressed according to the context of use. This latter was defined by the triplet <;platform, environment, user> where the platform refers to the physical device and the device software, the environment refers to the physical environment in which the application is used and the user element refers to the user preferences and user profile. In this paper, we define a dynamic software product line (DSPL) approach for the development of a family of context-adaptable user interfaces. The DSPL paradigm exploits the knowledge acquired in software product line engineering to develop systems that can be context-aware, or runtime adaptable. Our approach satisfies a set of contributions which will be validated by implementing and evaluating them according to an illustrative case study.