Self-explanatory User Interfaces by Model-Driven Engineering

Modern User Interfaces (UI) must deal with the increasing complexity of applications in terms of functionality as well as new properties as plasticity. The plasticity of a UI denotes its capacity of adaptation to the context of use preserving its quality. The efforts in plasticity have focused on the (meta) modeling of the UI, but the quality remains uncovered. We suggest a method for improving the quality of the UIs by providing explanations about the design of the UI itself: this is, by the use of the Self-Explanation. Self-Explanatory Us- er Interfaces (SEUI) makes reference to the capacity of a UI to supply the end-user with all the information on the ratio- nal of the UI, about its constitution (for example, what is the purpose of this button?), its current state (why is the menu disabled?) as well as its evolution (how can I enable this feature?).
This thesis investigates the SEUI by Model Driven Engineer- ing (MDE), where models are kept at run-time allowing the necessary techniques that maintain this link between design and execution.