1 Multi-Model and Multi-Level Development of User Interfaces Jean Vanderdonckt*, Elizabeth Furtado, João José Vasco Furtado, Quentin Limbourg*, Wilker Bezerra Silva, Daniel William Tavares Rodrigues, and Leandro da Silva Taddeo *Université catholique de Louvain ISYS/BCHI Institut d’Administration et de Gestion Place des Doyens, 1 Louvain-la-Neuve, B-1348 Belgium vanderdonckt@isys.ucl.ac.be limbourg@isys.ucl.ac.be Universidade de Fortaleza NATI - Célula EAD Washington Soares, 1321 – Bairo Edson Queiroz Fortaleza (Ceará), BR-60455770 Brazil elizabet@unifor.br, vasco@unifor.br, wilker@unifor.br, danielw@unifor.br, taddeo@unifor.br Abstract Universal design of user interfaces addresses design issues in multiple contexts of use where multiple types of users carry out multiple tasks, possibly in multiple domains of interest. Existing development methods do not necessarily support the development of such user interfaces, as they do not establish commonalities and differences between these multiple interfaces in different contexts of use. To address this need, a new development method is presented based on three levels of abstraction: (i) a conceptual level where a domain expert defines an ontology of concepts, relationships, and attributes of the domain of discourse, including user modelling; (ii) a logical level where a designer specifies multiple models based on the previously defined ontology and its rules; and (iii) a physical level where a developer develops multiple user interfaces from the previously specified models based on characteristics in the user models. Keywords Automated generation of user interfaces, computer-aided design of user interfaces, conceptual level, context of use, instantiation, logical level, model-based approach, modelling, multi-level, multi-model, ontology, physical level, universal design. Introduction In universal design [18], user interfaces (UIs) of interactive applications are developed for a wide population of users in different contexts of use by taking into account factors such as preferences, cognitive style, language, culture, habits and system experience. Universal design of single or multiple UIs (MUIs) poses some difficulties due to the consideration of these multiple parameters. In particular, the multiplicity of parameters dramatically increases the complexity of the design phase by adding a large number of design options. The number and scope of these design options increase the variety and complexity of the design. In addition, methods for developing UIs have difficulties with this variety of parameters because the factors are not necessarily identified and manipulated in a structured way nor truly considered in the standard design process. The goal of this chapter is to present a structured method addressing certain parameters required for universal design. The method is supported by a suite of tools based on two components: (i) an ontology of the domain of discourse and (ii) models that capture instantiations of concepts identified in this ontology in order to produce multiple UIs for multiple contexts of use. These different UIs exhibit different presentation styles, dialogue genres and UI structures. The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows: • The first section provides a state of the art of methods for developing UIs with a focus on universal design. • The next section defines a model in this development method, along with desirable properties. As this chapter adopts a conceptual view of the problem, the modelling activity will be organized into a layered architecture manipulating several models. • The three levels are then described respectively in the three next sections: conceptual in the third section, logical in the fourth section, and physical in the fifth section.