Useware Modeling for Ambient Intelligent Production Environments

The impact of user interface quality has grown in software systems engineering, and will grow further with upcoming new paradigms such as Ambient Intelligence or Ubiquitous Computing, which confront the production industry with a huge diversity of new usage situations. In this paper, we will show the adaptation of a task-oriented useware modeling language, which is employed in the model-based useware development process, to future paradigms by extending its existing models with respect to the new upcoming requirements. This language reflects several user groups’ tasks and user interface structure preferences in a common use model described in a system-independent language. It is being enhanced to describe spatial relations, connections between device compounds, and different ways of fulfilling tasks within different interaction zones. For the future, this model is intended to be used for the run-time generation of user interfaces for adaptive software and intelligent environments, especially in the area of production and manufacturing.