A domain specific language for contextual design

Abstract

This paper examines the role of user-centered design (UCD) approaches to design and implementation of a mobile social software application to support student social workers in their work place. The experience of using a variant of UCD is outlined. The principles and expected norms of UCD raised a number of key lessons. It is proposed that these problems and lessons are a result of the inadequacy of precision of modeling the outcomes of UCD, which prevents model driven approaches to method integration between UCD approaches. Given this, it is proposed that the Contextual Design method is a good candidate for enhancing with model driven principles. A subset of the Work model focussing on Cultural and Flow models are described using a domain specific language and supporting tool built using the MetaEdit+ platform. © 2010 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.