Federal University of São Carlos – Brazil Graduate Program in Computer Science Carlos Eduardo Cirilo Antonio Francisco do Prado Wanderley Lopes de Souza Luciana Aparecida Martinez Zaina José Fernando Rodrigues Junior TOWARDS A HYBRID APPROACH FOR ADAPTING WEB GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACES TO HETEROGENEOUS DEVICES USING CONTEXT Software Engineering Group 1 DMS’10, October 14-16, 2010, Chicago, USA vailable in: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/S021819401240012
Transcript
Federal University of São Carlos – BrazilGraduate Program in Computer Science
Carlos Eduardo CiriloAntonio Francisco do PradoWanderley Lopes de Souza
Luciana Aparecida Martinez ZainaJosé Fernando Rodrigues Junior
TOWARDS A HYBRID APPROACH FOR ADAPTING WEB GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACES TO
HETEROGENEOUS DEVICES USING CONTEXT
Software Engineering Group
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DMS’10, October 14-16, 2010, Chicago, USA
Available in: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/S0218194012400128
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Agenda
Motivations and Goals
Concepts and Tecnhiques Interface Adaptation Strategies
Hybrid Adaptation Approach
Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Related Work
Final Remarks and Further Work
DMS’10, October 14-16, 2010, Chicago, USA
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Motivation Ubiquitous Computing
It enables users easy access to services and applications anywhere, anytime, and using any computing device
Each device has a specific profile, which comprises its particular features like processing power, graphics capabilities, screen size, etc…
Need to adapt applications
DMS’10, October 14-16, 2010, Chicago, USA
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Motivation
Context Sensitivity Enables to manage interfaces adaptation according to the requirements imposed by the interaction context (device profile, user’s preferences, network characteristics, environment…)
Context-sensitive systems are able to automatically adapt their behavior and content considering the interaction context
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Motivation
Interface Adaptation Strategies at development time (static adaptation): specific interface versions are developed separately for each target device; and
at execution time (dynamic adaptation): interface’s code is automatically generated from abstract descriptions when user accesses the application
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Goals of this Paper
To present a hybrid approach for adapting rich interfaces of Web 2.0 applications, by combining:
static adaptation, by building a few generic versions of the interface for some device groups
dynamic adaptation, through the adaptation of snippets of the code using context information at runtime
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Interface Adaptation Strategies
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Interface Adaptation Strategies
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Hybrid Adaptation Approach
A few generic interface versions are developed, each being appropriate for a certain 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 retrieved from context (dynamic adaptation) Advantages:
reduction of the number of versions developed lower impact on application performance greater use of available resources on the device and, as consequence, a better interface adaptation
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Provides services to manipulate context and adapt user interfaces in a hybrid fashion
Structured into four modules [Vieira et al. 2009]:
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Acquisition Module It encompasses the adapters components that access the context sources (stored profiles, databases, camera and sensor drivers) for acquiring the contextual elements There is an appropriate adapter component for each context source. It makes UbiCon more extensible, since it facilitates the inclusion of new context sources or the removal of the unnecessary ones. The XML database called Wireless Universal Resource File (WURFL) was adopted as main context source in UbiCon to acquire the devices profiles
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Acquisition Module
Use of WURFL Java API for retrieving device
profiles stored inWURFL database
Device profile selection is based on User-Agent
field of the HTTP request originated by
the current user’s access device
Method for retrieving the contextual elements
related to current access device profile
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Acquisition Module
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Processing Module It includes the aggregators components that process and group the contextual elements according to the domain entities that they characterize (device, user, network) Each aggregator hides the complexity for handling the various adapters of the Acquisition Module and provides a single interface, called IAggregator, for obtaining the contextual elements of a given domain entity
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Processing ModuleDeviceAggregator represents the access device and interacts directly with all adapters that access the context sources which provide the contextual elements related to the device profile
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Dissemination Module It is composed of a single component called ContextManager that provides the contextual elements manipulated in the Processing Module through the ICtxManager interface
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Content Adaptation Module It provides the services for user interface adaptation
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Content Adaptation ModuleUse of ContextManager
for retrieving the contextual elements related to the device
profileUse of objects from
Java Document Object Model (DOM) API,
which allows modify ing Web documents at
runtime
Adaptation according to retrieved device profile
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Hybrid Adaptation Operation
Client accesses application by sending
a HTTP requestThe application Servlet
invokes the contentAdapt method of
the UbiCon
UbiCon retrieves the access device profile
from WURFL
UbiCon selects the requested Web page
from the most appropriate generic
interface version according to the device
profile obtained
The code snippets of interface content that need to be refined to
meet device profile are identified
The necessary adjustments are applied
The adapted page is written in the output
stream of HTTP response, and sent to
the user’s device
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Case Study Web module of the Ambulance Space Positioning System (ASPS) [Bellini et al 2010] 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
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Ubiquitous Context Framework (UbiCon)
Case Study
Visualization on HTC G1 screen:with interface
adaptationwithout interface
adaptation
Visualization on iPhone screen:with interface
adaptationwithout interface
adaptation
Visualization on desktop screen:
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Related Work Extended Internet Content Adaptation Framework (EICAF) [Forte et al. 2008]
Framework for content adaptation of Web applications It uses ontologies for describing the profiles of devices, users and other relevant entities and employs Web services for performing content adaptation
Semantic Context-aware Ubiquitous Scout (SCOUT) [Woensel et al. 2009]
Framework for building context-sensitive applications for mobile devices It allows mapping real world entities (e.g., people, places, objects) into virtual entities on the Web
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Related Work Xmobile [Viana & Andrade 2008]
Environment for generating adaptive interfaces of form-based applications for mobile devices Framework of abstract user interface components, which allows the modeling of applications interfaces Tool to support the code generation at development time
Semantic Transformer [Paternò et al 2008] Tool for automatic transformation of Web pages originally designed for desktop platform into Web pages suitable for mobile devices Dynamic adaptation
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Conclusions and Further Work Main contributions
Reduction in the complexity of development, because there is no need to build a specific interface version for each existing device type. Instead, a few generic versions for some devices groups are developed Hiding the issues related to context acquisition and content adaptation, allowing to keep focus on the functionalities related to the business requirements of the application
Future work Inclusion of context sources that provide contextual elements which characterize other entities, such as user and access network Extension of UbiCon with the inclusion of modules that provide other context-sensitive services, like recommendation and location-based services
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ReferencesBellini, A., Cirilo, C. E., Ferraz, V. R., Araujo, J. G., Duque, J. L., Annibal, L. P.,
Durelli, R. S., and Marcondes, C. (2010). “A low cost positioning and visualization system using smartphones for emergency ambulance service”, In: Proc. of the 2010 ICSE Workshop on Software Engineering in Health Care, pp. 12-18.
Forte, M., Souza, W. L. e Prado, A. F. (2008). “Using Ontologies and Web Services for Content Adaptation in Ubiquitous Computing”, Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 81, n. 3, pp. 368-381.
Paternò, F., Santoro, C. e Scorcia, A. (2008), “Automatically Adapting Web Sites for Mobile Access through Logical Descriptions and Dynamic Analysis of Interaction Resources”, In: Proc. Working Conference on Advanced Visual interfaces, pp. 260-267.
Woensel, W. v., Casteleyn, S. e Troyer, O. (2009), “A Framework for Decentralized, Context-Aware Mobile Applications using Semantic Web Technology”, In: Proc. Confederated International Workshops and Posters on On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems, pp. 88-97.
Viana, W. e Andrade, R. M. C. (2008). “XMobile: a MB-UID Environment for Semi-Automatic Generation of Adaptive Applications for Mobile Devices”, J. of Syst. and Soft., vol. 81, n. 3, pp. 382-394, Mar.
Vieira, V., Tedesco, P., Salgado, A. C. (2009), “A Process for the Design of Context-Sensitive Systems”, In: Proc. int. Conf. on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design, pp. 143-148. DMS’10, October 14-16, 2010, Chicago, USA
