Context-sensitive user interfaces for semantic services

Abstract

Service-centric solutions usually require rich context to fully deliver and better reflect on the underlying applications. We present a novel use of context in the form of customized user interface services with the concept of User Interface as a Service (UIaaS). UIaaS takes user profiles as input to generate contextaware interface services. Such interface services can be used as context to augment semantic services with contextual information leading to UIaaS as a Context (UIaaSaaC). The added serendipitous benefit of the proposed concept is that the composition of a customized user interface with the requested service is performed by the service composition engine, as is the case with any other services. We use a specialpurpose language (called User Interface Description Language (UIDL)) to model and realize user interfaces as services. We use a real-life e-government application, human services delivery for the citizens, as a proof-of-concept. We also present a comprehensive evaluation of the proposed approach using a functional evaluation and a nonfunctional evaluation consisting of an end user usability test and expert usability reviews. © 2012 ACM.