Human-Centered E-Business System Development Framework

This chapter builds on the foundations laid down in the previous chapter. It describes the human-centered e-business system development framework for multi-agent e-business systems based on human-centered criteria outlined in the first chapter and the pragmatic considerations and enabling theories discussed in chapter 3, which contribute towards realization of those criteria. The human-centered framework is described in terms of four components, namely, activity-centered e-business analysis, problem solving ontology, transformation agent, and multimedia interpretation, respectively. The three human-centered criteria are used as guidelines for development of the human-centered framework. The pragmatic considerations and contributing theories are used to develop the structure and content, or knowledge base, of the four components. The structure and content are described at the conceptual and computational (transformation agents) level. We start this chapter by describing the external and internal planes of human interaction which underpin the development of the human-centered framework. We follow it with the description of two components of the human-centered e-business system development framework, namely, activity-centered e-business analysis and problem solving ontology. In the next chapter we continue with the description of the problem solving ontology component and describe two other components, namely, the transformation agent and multimedia interpretation component. These four components have been used to define the external and internal planes of human interaction with the environment.