COMET(s), A Software Architecture Style and an Interactors Toolkit for Plastic User Interfaces

Plasticity of User Interfaces (UIs) refers to the ability of UIs to withstand variations of context of use () while preserving usability. This paper presents COMET, a software architecture style for building task-based plastic interactors. COMET bridges the gap between two main approaches in plasticity: model-driven engineering and interactors toolkits. Interactors that are compliant to the COMET style are called COMETs. These COMETs are multi-rendering multi-technological interactors (WIMP and post-WIMP, Web and non Web as well as vocal). COMETs are extensible and controllable by the user (up until now the designer, in the future the end-user). The COMET architecture and the use of COMETs are illustrated on an executable prototype: a slide viewer called CamNote++.