A dialogue-based framework for the user experience reengineering of a legacy application

Abstract

Kraft [1] defines the User Experience - UX - as the set of sensations that the end user feels using a product. These sensations dominate so much the UX curve, to generate spikes or dips depending on how positive or negative such feelings are. The UX, therefore, represents a likelihood index of the user willing to continue to use a product. Ansuini [2] defines a legacy application - LA - as an information system of value inherited from the past. Nowadays, most of the companies make use of LAs, which on one side are characterized by high reliability and specialization, but on the other have an equally high degree of obsolescence, also with regard to the user interface. This paper introduces a framework for the UX reengineering of a LA, using the methodology Interactive Dialogue Model - IDM. The framework enables the definition and the implementation of the UX reengineering operations through a specific process, characterized by a series of steps. The reengineering process can take place in an almost fully automatic way, even if, in some phases, is still guaranteed the possibility to the designer to intervene on the intermediate diagrams. Given the reiteration of the reengineering process, it is necessary to historicize the changes made by the designer, and automatically applies them, when necessary, without any manual intervention. At this purpose, the implemented editor generates some extra runtime ATL - ATLAS Transformation Language - rules, in order to keep track of the customizations made on the model by the designer.