J. Gulliksen et al. (Eds.): EIS 2007, LNCS 4940, pp. 36–52, 2008.
Formal Testing of Multimodal Interactive Systems
Jullien Bouchet, Laya Madani, Laurence Nigay, Catherine Oriat, and Ioannis Parissis
Laboratoire d’Informatique de Grenoble (LIG)
BP 53 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
Forename.Name@imag.fr
Abstract. This paper presents a method for automatically testing inter-
active multimodal systems. The method is based on the Lutess testing
environment, originally dedicated to synchronous software specified us-
ing the Lustre language. The behaviour of synchronous systems, con-
sisting of cycles starting by reading an external input and ending by
issuing an output, is to a certain extent similar to the one of interactive
systems. Under this hypothesis, the paper presents our method for
automatically testing interactive multimodal systems using the Lutess
environment. In particular, we show that automatic test data generation
based on different strategies can be carried out. Furthermore, we show
how multimodality-related properties can be specified in Lustre and in-
tegrated in test oracles.
1 Introduction
A multimodal system supports communication with the user through different modali-
ties such as voice and gesture. Multimodal systems have been developed for a wide
range of domains (medical, military, …) [5]. In such systems, modalities may be used
sequentially or concurrently, and independently or combined synergistically. The
seminal "Put that there" demonstrator [4] that combines speech and gesture illustrates
a case of a synergistic usage of two modalities. The design space described in [25],
based on the five Allen relationships, capture this variety of possible usages of several
modalities. Moreover, the versatility of multimodal systems is further exacerbated by
the huge variety of innovative input modalities, such as the phicons (physical icons)
[14]. This versatility results in an increased complexity of the design, development
and verification of multimodal systems.
Approaches based on formal specifications automating the development and the
validation activities can help in dealing with this complexity. Several approaches have
been proposed. As a rule, they consist of adapting existing formalisms in the particu-
lar context of interactive systems. Examples of such approaches are the Formal
System Modelling (FSM) analysis [10], the Lotos Interactor Model (LIM) [23] or the
Interactive Cooperative Objects (ICO), based on Petri Nets [21]. The synchronous
approach has also been proposed as an alternative to modelling and verifying by
model-checking of some properties of interactive systems [8]. Similarly to the previ-
ous approaches, the latter requires formal description of the interactive systems such
as Lustre [13] programs on which properties, also described as Lustre programs, are
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008
The original version of this chapter was revised: The copyright line was incorrect. This has been
corrected. The Erratum to this chapter is available at DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-92698-6_37