TAMODIA 2009 was the 8th International Workshop in the series looking at
TAsk MOdels and DIAgrams for User Interface Development. Over the years the
submissions have looked at a variety of perspectives for modeling and annotating
the user interface development process. The eighth workshop continued that
approach and was combined with the IFIPWorking Conference on Human Error,
Safety and Systems Development, HESSD 2009. There is an obvious synergy
between the two workshops, as a rigorous, engineering approach to user interface
development can help in the prevention of human error and the maintenance of
safety in critical interactive systems.
The 12 papers presented here take a variety of approaches and cover different
domains of the application of task modeling. We begin with higher-level
perspectives on business processes that enable us to drive user interface development.
Aspects of the general design process are also considered and applied
to service-oriented and augmented reality interaction. Formal methods are also
investigated for more rigorous development. Model-driven development is also
recognized for its contribution to high-level interface design, and continuing the
software engineering theme, approaches based on UML are presented.
Sousa et al. propose a model-driven approach to linking business processes
with user interface models. Their approach is demonstrated in the context of a
large financial institution and they show how the alignment between UI models
and business can be managed, taking advantage of the traceability provided
by model-driven design. Neubauer et al. also consider a flow-oriented modeling
of business processes as a more open approach to capturing the dynamics of
process modeling and understanding. Fritscher and Pigneur consider a more
creative approach to business modeling with their ontology canvas that aims to
provide a template for the interactive modeling of business processes very early
in the development life cycle.
Looking at the design process itself, Media et al. take a service-oriented approach
to supporting user interface developers at the operational, organizational
and intentional levels of design abstraction. Octavia et al. look at the context
of virtual and augmented reality environments and consider how adaption
can be supported in design, where the adaptations of the interface are driven
by context changes. Moving on to more formal considerations of development,
Randles et al. consider the situation calculus as the basis for interaction modeling.
They investigate their proposal for the situation calculus in the context of
a complex medical system and also draw on lessons from autonomic computing
in providing system self-management. Caffiau et al. consider current limitations
in the description of objects in user interface specification. They examine the
K-MADe tool and consider modifications that balance the needs of free expression
by developers with the need for rigorous description of the objects.