Methods and tools for developing usable multi-platform interactive applications

The increasing availability of new types of interaction devices raises the need for new methods and tools to support the design and development of highly usable context-sensitive nomadic applications accessible through multiple platforms. This paper provides an overview and discusses a solution based on the use of multiple levels of abstractions, which has been studied within the framework of the European project CAMELEON. Moreover it addresses the problem of evaluating the usability of these tools by discussing the specific issues, the criteria and methodologies applied as well as some results obtained in an experimental activity on the subject.