An Abstract Interaction Model for a MDA Software Production Method

Currently, most well-known model-based software production methods focus on defining the system functionality (business logic and persistence). However, the interaction between users and the system is too often not accurately described. Frequently an interface must be generated for multiple technological platforms (Desktop, Web, Mobile devices etc.) from the same model. The key issue is the model that was designed for describing a specific platform interface. When this model is used in other platforms, the final user interfaces have usability problems due to a lack of expressiveness at conceptual level. An interesting approach is to solve this problem from a MDA point of view. Two abstraction levels are defined in order to model interaction: a PIM (Platform Independent Model) or abstract level to describe interaction without taking into account technological issues and a PSM (Platform Specific Model) or concrete level to deal with platform concrete requirements. This paper explains in detail how the PIM level is defined in order to produce multi-platform user interfaces. This Abstract Interaction Model is made up of two models: an User Model that defines different types of users and an Abstract Interface Model to define the user interface. The final goal is to introduce these new models into OO-Method, an MDA-based software production method to produce software systems. As a result, a user interface which can be used as a prototype is automatically generated.