UsiXML Extension for Awareness Support

Overview & Synopsis

Awareness support in MDA technologies is virtually nonexistent. Furthermore, until recently there was no conceptual model suitable for representing Awareness support in model based architectures. Here, we introduce an extension of UsiXML user interface description language to support Awareness as an information requirement. UsiXML aims to describe multi-context and multimodal user interfaces. The model-based approach of UsiXML makes it a good candidate for integrating Awareness Support from the requirements phase to the final user interfaces. It enables Awareness requirements to be traced from the final user interfaces to the tasks and domain entities that generate them, allowing developers to maintain and validate all the Awareness mechanisms provided by the system. This leads not only to a better quality of system developed, but also an organized and traceable development of Awareness mechanisms, easier maintenance and improved user interaction.