Current Challenges and Applications for Adaptive User Interfaces

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

In this chapter we present the current advances in the field of adaptive user interfaces, analysing the different research efforts, the challenges involved as well as the more recent and promising directions in this field. Initially, we introduce the foundations of adaptive user interfaces, also referred in technical literature as Intelligent User Interfaces (IUIs), then we move to explore the motivation and rationale for their use, and finally we discuss the challenges they currently have to deal with. In this context, IUIs are presented as a multidisciplinary field, with relevant research and cross-fertilized ideas derived from different areas, however special emphasis is put on the approaches taken by three core disciplines: Artificial Intelligence (AI), User Modelling (UM) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). After providing the foundations for IUIs, an in-depth revision for each approach is presented including the most recent findings in models, algorithms and architectures for adaptive user interfaces. Although, adaptive user interfaces are considered a recent research field, this chapter is enriched with a state-of-the-art of IUIs applications. The material included presents the most relevant developed IUIs applied in different real domains either as a research prototype or as a complete system. A methodological analysis of these systems is presented, contrasting its advantages, limitations and domain-dependence for its success and acceptance by users. The analysis aims to uncover common principles for effective IUI design. Also, this chapter details our proposed taxonomy which is applied for the comparison of the different IUIs systems. Finally, the chapter presents the gaps left by the approaches under analysis and concludes with a discussion of the challenges currently open, presenting a number of possible future research directions. Las interfaces de usuario para los sistemas de computacion han cambiado mucho en los ultimos 20 anos. Las primeras interfaces basadas en texto que utilizaban la linea de comando para acceder a los recursos del sistema operativo, han sido sustituidas por interfaces graficas que son manipuladas a traves de dispositivos de entrada como el teclado y raton. En la actualidad, la interfaces buscan ser mas intuitivas al usuario al presentar elementos grafico de facil asociacion con elementos reales mediante el uso de metaforas (Dix et al., 2003).