Adaptive Interfaces

Computer interfaces are becoming ever richer in functionality, software systems are becoming more complex, and online information spaces are becoming larger in size. On the other hand, the number and diversity of people who use computer systems are increasing as well. The vast majority of new users are thereby not computer experts, but rather laypersons such as professionals in nontechnical areas, elderly people, and children. These users vary with respect not only to their computer skills, but also to their fields of expertise, their tasks and goals, their mood and motivation, and their intellectual and physical capabilities. The traditional strategy for enabling heterogeneous user groups to master the complexity and richness of computers was to render computer interaction as simple as possible and thereby to cater to the lowest common denominator of all users. Increasingly, though, developers are creating computer applications that can be “manually” customized to users’ needs by the users themselves or by an available expert. Other applications go beyond this capability. They are able within certain limits to recognize user needs and to cater to them automatically. Following the terminology of Reinhard Oppermann, we will use the term adaptable for the manual type of application and adaptive for the automatic type.