Towards intelligent migration of user interfaces

Abstract

The multitude of interactive devices we use daily has steadily increased since the advent of personal computers. Also, the spreading ubiquitous computing leaves the users with increasing number of device ensembles. There is often a need to change the device in use, which requires moving applications, data, user interfaces or parts of them to other device(s) and back. This is the case, when something is manipulated on one device and a need to migrate it towards another device exists as well. In order to study the problems of such migration functionality, we defined, designed and implemented a proof-of-concept prototype for automatic context-aware migration of Web applications between devices. The prototype was evaluated in three distinct modes (manual, assisted and automatic) with a user study to collect technical data and user feedback. The results highlighted interesting correlations between the system behaviour and user ratings, and statistically relevant differences on how users perceived the proposed modes of the system. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.