MoPeDT - Pervasive Interface Development Toolkit for Mobile Phones

MoPeDT (Pervasive Interface Development Toolkit for Mobile Phones) assists interface developers to user-centred design, evaluate and analyse mobile applications in the context of the Third Paradigm (Pervasive / Ubiquitous Computing - Internet of Things).

If you publish anything incorporating MoPeDT, please cite the following papers:

Leichtenstern, Karin, and Elisabeth, André. "MoPeDT -
Features and Evaluation of a User-Centred Prototyping Tool." EICS'10:
ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems. ACM,
2010. 93-102.

Leichtenstern, Karin, and Elisabeth, André. "The Assisted User-Centred Generation and Evaluation
of Pervasive." Ami'09: Third European Conference on Ambient
Intelligence. Springer, 2009. 245-255.

The platform consists of two software components:

1. MoPeDT - Architecture and Software Modules: A flexible client-server architecture and their software modules help to generate pervasive environments. A special software modul enables the generation of pervasive interfaces for mobile phones that support the presentation of static and dynamic content and follow approved mobile phone usability guidelines.
2. MoPeDT - User-Centred Prototyping Tool: A GUI-based software tool that bases on MoPeDT's architecture and software modules. It assists interface developers in order to conduct the iterative design phase of the user-centred design process: the design, evaluation and analysis of pervasive interface prototypes.

1. MoPeDT - Architecture and Software Modules

   MoPeDT supports developers with an architecture that easily enables the integration of different components emerging in a pervasive environment. The next figure shows the architecture of MoPeDT that consists of the following components: a main server, a database, several pervasive objects, several users with mobile phones, several sensors, several actuators and several evaluators. For all these components software modules exist. A special software module is the framework for mobile phones.
   
   This framework handles all network communications and requests. Additionally, the mobile phone framework supports developers with a set of different mobile interaction techniques and a set of screen templates that follow approved usability guidelines of mobile phones.

   Via an XML file, four types of screen templates can statically or dynamically be specified: ItemScreens, MediaScreens, AlertScreens (Info, Error and Waiting) and TabScreens.

   The following figures show examples of ItemScreens that can be specified via the XML file.
   

   The next figures show examples of MediaScreens to output or input multimedia content.
   

   The next figures show a example of a TabScreen that can be specified with the framework.
   

   Using MoPeDT - interface developers can specify the following aspects of the pervasive interface: the mobile interaction techniques and their contexts as well as the application flow and static and dynamic behaviour via script code.

   • The mobile phone framework supports the specification of emerging contexts on the mobile phone. These contexts occur as a result of mobile interactions (e.g. OUTDOOR_LOCATION.HOME specifies a context for outdoor location-based interactions). The following mobile interaction techniques are currently supported:

     1. Keyboard-based interaction
     2. NFC-based interaction
     3. Speech-based interaction
     4. In- and Outdoor Location-based interaction

   • The application flow of the pervasive interface can be specified via state charts that are represented by XML files. 

     1. Transitions specify the interface's behaviour and bases on the specified contexts for the mobile interaction techniques.
     2. States represent the different screens that present static and dynamic content.

   • A script language can be used to specify dynamic behaviour of the pervasive interface. For instance, the pervasive interface can dynamically load content stored in the database that is provided by MoPeDT's architecture.

2. MoPeDT - User-Centred Prototyping Tool

   MoPeDT's IDE is a software tool that uses MoPeDT's architecture and modules as a basis to design, evaluate and analyse pervasive interfaces for mobile phones. It maps the iterative design phase to support developers in order to develop user-centred interfaces.

   • Interface developers can design prototypes of pervasive interface for mobile phones. Therefore, the IDE supports the specififcation of the database content, contexts and application flow. The next figure shows the GUI that supports the specification of the application flow. As a result of the design specification prototypes are generated that run as an emulation or on real phones. The design component reduces the required software engineering skills.
     
   • Interface developers can evaluate their generated prototypes. For instance, they can capture videos and automatically log all emerging contexts in the pervasive environment. The evaluation component reduces the required usability engineering skills.
     
   • Interface developers can analyse the prototypes. They can load the captured user studies and search for usability or reflect the user's behaviour. The analysis component also reduces the required usability engineergin skills.