Integrating adaptation rules for people with special needs in model-based UI development process

The adaptation of user interfaces for people with special needs is a promising approach in order to enable their access to digital services. Model-based user interfaces provide a useful approach for this purpose since they allow tailoring final user interfaces with a high degree of flexibility. This paper describes a system called Adaptation Integration System aimed at providing Cameleon Reference Framework model-based tools with a mechanism to integrate adaptation rules in the development process. Thus, more accessible user-tailored interfaces can be automatically generated. The services provided by the system can be applied at both design time and runtime. At design time, a user interface can be tailored at any abstraction level in the development process. At runtime, changes in the context of use trigger the adaptation process. Adaptation rules are stored in a repository tagged with meta-information useful for the adaptation process, such as the granularity of the adaptations and the abstraction level. As case studies, two applications have been developed using the services provided by the system. One of them exploits the benefits at design time, whereas the other application is devoted to describe the adaptation process at runtime. The results obtained in these two scenarios demonstrate the viability and potential of the adaption integration system since even inexperienced designers may efficiently produce accessible user interfaces.