HOPS: A prototypical specification tool for interactive systems

Abstract

This article suggests higher-order processes as a formal framework to model interactive systems and supplies a corresponding prototypical specifi cation tool (HOPS). Processes and their components reflect the recursive nature of interaction. Each component is an independent process itself. Though higher-level processes specify the interaction between their components they do not fully control them. HOPS offers a unified description of behavioral and structural aspects. Structured sets of sub-processes (e.g. hierarchies) serve to represent specific domains of interest within a process. Operations are the smallest units for analyzing and designing behavior. However, they can be unfolded to processes and vice versa. This supports an understanding of interactive systems as open and nonmonotonic systems. Their composition/ decomposition may exhibit unpredictable behavior. It is shown that the approach follows the interaction paradigm more closely than existing modeling approaches in HCI. Possible usage scenarios are given. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.