An Automated Model-Based Approach for Developing Mobile User Interfaces

Lassaad Ben Ammar

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3066007

Abstract

The ever-increasing number of mobile platforms constitutes a challenge for application developers, who must develop efficient mobile applications for multiple platforms. Recently, a specific interest is being taken in the Model Based User Interface Development (MBUID) by Software Engineering Community. In such paradigm, an application's user interface is obtained by defining models and transformations of those models. This paper aim at adopting MBUID paradigm to address the problem of mobile application development. As such, we propose a new approach and its support system for the automatic generation of mobile user interfaces. The approach and the system are based on a set of standards and relevant technologies such as EMF, GMF, ATL, and Xpand. A case study is presented, in the paper, with the aim of verifying the usefulness of this approach.

Highlights

Nowadays, the ubiquity and widespread of mobiles devices lead to an intensive use of mobile applications that run on different mobile platforms (Android, iOS, Symbian, . . . )
The present paper aims to delineate with Model Based User Interface Development (MBUID) for mobile User Interfaces (UI) development
Mobile application developers need to develop several versions of the same application that meet the requirements of the different platforms

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The ubiquity and widespread of mobiles devices lead to an intensive use of mobile applications that run on different mobile platforms (Android, iOS, Symbian, . . . ). Some research focuses on the adoption of Model-driven Engineering (MDE) [1] in the development of cross platform mobile application [2] This field of software engineering could benefit from MDE that is known for its ability to automate the generation of source codes, in any programming language, from conceptual models. The main advantages of our approach with regard to the state of the art can be summarized in the following: 1) A development process aligned with the principles of MBUID; 2) A uniform meta-model for each intermediate artifact reducing thereby the problem of variety of concepts and terminologies presented by others research works; 3) A full-automated transformation process implemented using relevant technologies in the field of MBUID such as MOF, EMF, ATL, and Xpand.

MODEL-BASED USER INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT

CASE STUDY

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS