Adaptive Interfaces in Mobile Environments: An Approach Based on Mobile Agents

abstract Mobility for graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is a challenging problem, as different GUIs need to be constructed for different device capabilities and changing context, preferences and users' locations. GUI developers frequently create multiple user interface versions for different devices. The solution lies in using a single, abstract, user interface description that is used later to automatically generate user interfaces for different devices. Various techniques are proposed to adapt GUIs from an abstract specification to a concrete interface. Design-time techniques have the possibility of creating better performing GUIs but, in contrast to run-time techniques, lack flexibility and mobility. Run-time techniques' mobility and autonomy can be significantly improved by using mobile agent technology and an indirect GUI generation paradigm. Using indirect generation enables analysis of computer-human interaction and application of artificial intelligence techniques to be made at run-time, increasing GUIs' performance and usability.