Multi Front-End Engineering

Multi Front-End Engineering (MFE) deals with the design of multiple consistent user interfaces (UI) for one application. One of the main challenges is the conflict between commonality (all front-ends access the same application core) and variability (multiple front-ends on different platforms). This can be overcome by extending techniques from model-driven user interface engineering. We present the MANTRA approach, where the common structure of all interfaces of an application is modelled in an abstract UI model (AUI) annotated with temporal constraints on interaction tasks. Based on these constraints we adapt the AUI, e.g., to tailor presentation units and dialogue structures for a particular platform. We use model transformations to derive concrete, platform-specific UI models (CUI) and implementation code. The presented approach generates working prototypes for three platforms (GUI, web, mobile) integrated with an application core via web service protocols. In addition to static evaluation such prototypes facilitate early functional evaluations by practical use cases.