Context Management and Personalisation: A Tool Suite for Context- and User-aware Computing
Andreas Zimmermann · Fraunhofer-Publica (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft) · 2007
Rapidly changing requirements and dynamic environments drive the development of context-aware applications. Research into context-aware computing focuses on programming frameworks and toolkits that support the development of context-aware applications (Chen, 2004; Dey et al., 2001; Efstratiou, 2004; Henricksen and Indulska, 2006). However, current approaches emphasise developers as the main actor in the software development process and lack properties making context-aware computing transparent and applicable for other actors. Developers cannot anticipate all potential situations and all possible ways of application behaviour during the development phase. During runtime, a change in the configuration, structure or content of the developed prototype is difficult. This work claims that the extension of the spectrum of actors participating in the design, implementation, authoring and configuration of context-aware applications beyond developers substantially tackles the reduction of usability problems introduced by context-aware computing. Addressing these issues requires this work to accomplish both a conceptual and a software framework. The conceptual framework bases on a comprehensive understanding of the processes involved with context-aware computing in general that can be communicated to the entire spectrum of actors comprising developers, domain experts, authors and end-users. The software framework implements the conceptual framework and supports the actors on diverse implementation skill levels in their roles within the software development cycle for context-aware applications. The core contribution of this work comprises a design view of context-aware applications, which permits the control over the internals of the application during design- and runtime, and a Context Management System, which provides different tools and abstraction levels according to the actors’ roles within the software development process. Two case studies document and evaluate the application of the system for the construction, authoring, maintenance and tailoring of context-aware applications and their behaviour. As operational and adaptable context-aware applications, these case studies prove the validity and general applicability of the tool suite, the software architecture and the concepts behind.