Task models for safe software evolution and adaptation

Abstract

Many industrial applications have large and complex interfaces that grow incrementally over time. Typically, these interfaces will be used by people with different user profiles. The combination of these facts demands a software methodology and tool support that ideally allow consistency checks and configuration in order to avoid a system to become unusable. In this paper, we present an approach in which task models are used throughout the design and development cycle up to the final application. The task model is not only used at design time, but is also used to check for potential problems with e.g. consistency during configuration of the final application.