Current Practices on Model-based Context-aware

Adaptation

CASFE’2013 London – England

24/06/2013

Vivian Genaro MottiDave Raggett and Jean Vanderdonckt

Louvain Interaction LaboratoryUniversité catholique de Louvain

vivian.genaromotti@uclouvain.be

Model-based Approaches

• Benefits extensively investigated in academia– lower development costs– faster time to market– higher usability levels– optimal use of the resources available

• How is it actually adopted among industrial partners?– No consensus about this

22

Agenda

• Background

• Problem

• Survey

– Methodology

– Results

– Analysis

– Discussion

• Conclusion

33

Background

• Models are an abstract and simplified representation of a system– MDA aims at alleviating the cost of code production while

improving its qualities

• Context-awareness is a capability to identify and consider contextual information

• Adaptation aims at providing users an application that is more suitable according to the context of use

44

Problem

• These 3 concepts target at benefits for both end users and developers– But they may imply in additional costs for development

• Sottet (2009)– industry still remains code-centric

– models still fit in the contemplative category

• It is not clear how IT companies actually understand, adopt and consider– CAA and MDA

55

Survey

• Based on 2 main hypotheses

H1) Stakeholders are aware of the importance and the benefits of considering: context-awareness, model-based approaches and adaptation.

H2) Stakeholders do not fully incorporate into their daily work practices: context-gathering, model-based approaches and adaptation.

66

Methodology

• Target– I.T. practitioners

– Of different • Expertise levels

• Backgrounds

• Roles

• Countries

77

Methodology• Structure: 4 main parts

– Profile

– Context

– Models

– Adaptation

• Application– Google docs

– Invited via email

– 33 answers

88

Survey Methodology

99

Results

• Profile– I.T. practitioners

– n=33

1010

Results

• Profile– I.T. practitioners

– n=33

1111

Results

• Context Dimensions considered

1212

Results

1313

Context-relevance Context-usage

Results• Contextual dimensions

1414

Context-relevance Context-usage

Results

User

1515

Platform

Environment

Results

• Adaptation

1616

Pattern

Librar

ies

Public Guidelin

es

Embedded Featu

res

Repositorie

s02468

101214

Sources

Graceful d

egradati

on

Progre

ssive

enhance

mentBoth

None02468

101214161820

Strategies

Results

1717

MDE UML Both None02468

1012141618

Models

Results

• Models Benefits

– Provide a common language and standards

– Facilitate reuse

– Generate systems that are more complete and have more qualities

– Provide help for• Communication

• Discussion

• Analysis

1818

Results

• Models Drawbacks

– Hard to customize, to adapt, and to maintain

– Lack support (or have incomplete support)

– Hard or slow to synchronize changes

– Require more expertise, efforts and time

1919

Remarks

• …models are relevant and useful but the lack of "easy to use" applications, "easy to draw models" puts resistance for developers to use these tools

• ... if the model-based approach is directly responsible for the generated code and any changes in the code automatically reflects in the model then it would be extremely relevant to have this kind of approach during the development…

2020

Remarks

• ...maintaining the docs and the code in a disjoint manner makes me waste some of the time [...] given that the coding sometimes needs to be changed to work.

• ... I'm not sure models could be used in our domain: UIs are very complex and uses custom widgets

2121

Discussion

• Most of the stakeholders seem to recognize the relevance and benefits of such practices

• Model-based CAA is not fully considered or just partially adopted in the software development phases

• The complexity and efforts needed to incorporate them is the main drawback

• Only by facilitating and supporting its adoption through better tools, it may increase their usage

2222

Conclusion

• To actually incorporate models into work practices, stakeholders need– Complete support

– Mature frameworks

– Standard tools

2323

For more information and downloading,http://www.lilab.be

User Interface eXtensible Markup Languagehttp://www.usixml.org

Thank you very much!

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