List of figures and tables

Abstract

User Interface (UI) is that subset of a software system that interacts with the user of the system. Being a software system in itself, UI possesses certain attributes or non-functional requirements (NFRs) such as usability, reliability, simplicity, unambiguity, etc. However, recently, adaptability is emerging as an important characteristic for UI systems. Briefly, adaptability is the ability of a system to accommodate changes in its environment. As for any other software system, the first step in the development of a UI is the creation of the architecture for the system, and in order for the UI to be adaptable, the architecture of the UI should itself be adaptable. This paper focuses on semi-automatic generation of adaptable User Interfaces by using a tool called the Software Architecture Adaptability Assistant (or SA3). SA3 uses the principles behind the NFR Framework, particularly the latter’s knowledge base properties, to automatically generate adaptable architectures, which can then be completed by the UI developer, if needed. In order to validate the architectures generated by the tool, we used the domain of embedded systems, in particular, test systems. SA3 generated adaptable architectures for UI for these systems and we implemented the architectures to confirm their adaptability.