A model-based framework for mobile apps customization through context-dependent rules

The advent of the Internet of Things and mobile applications has made the possible contexts of use more and more varied, and creates new challenges for user interface developers. Although model-based approaches aim to support the generation of applications for different implementation technologies, limited attention has been paid to how to exploit them for novel context-dependent applications. We present a model-based framework that allows developers to flexibly customize their mobile apps to react to events not foreseen in the initial versions. It is composed of an authoring environment supporting the definition of model-based descriptions and generating mobile apps from them. The authoring environment allows developers to enrich the dynamic behaviour of the generated applications through trigger-action rules. The resulting versions of the apps can provide customized behaviour according to the actual contexts of use. The authoring environment supports efficient development of such customizations. We show its potential by describing an example application, and report on a first test with developers.