Ontology-Based Model for Supporting Dynamic and Adaptive User Interfaces

Abstract

Adaptive user interfaces involves the design of dynamic interfaces, the main purpose of which is to present an adapted alternative to the user to ease the interaction. User’s preferences, context situation, and device’s capabilities help these systems to adapt the interface to make the interaction more adequate to the current situation. Being aware of different characteristics of these entities is vital for reaching the main goals of these systems efficiently. To collect knowledge from these entities, it is necessary to design several formal models to help to organize and give meaning to the gathered data. This article analyzes several literature solutions for modeling users, context, and devices considering different approaches. The article identifies their advantages and drawbacks to finally propose a new ontology model that addresses the identified limitations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eduardo Castillejo

Eduardo Castillejo is a Research Assistant in the Internet unit at “MORElab - Envisioning Future Internet” research group (http://www.morelab.deusto.es/), DeustoTech – Deusto Institute of Technology, at the University of Deusto. At present he is pursuing his Ph.D. at Deusto University, focused on semantic adaptive user interfaces for mobile devices.

Aitor Almeida

Aitor Almeida is a Researcher and Project Manager at the “MORElab – Envisioning Future Internet” group (http://www.morelab.deusto.es/), at the University of Deusto (Spain). His research interests include pervasive computing, social network analysis, data mining, intelligent objects, and the semantic web.

Diego López-de-Ipiña

Diego López-de-Ipiña is an Associate Professor and Principal Researcher of “MORElab – Envisioning Future Internet” group (http://www.morelab.deusto.es), University of Deusto. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. His main research interests are pervasive computing, Internet of things, semantic service middleware, open linked data, social data mining, and mobile-mediated interaction.