Automatic semantic platform-dependent redesign

Abstract

Nowadays, many devices provide access to Web pages: desktops, mobile phones, PDAs, etc.. Often desktop user interfaces need to be redesigned for mobile devices in order to support nomadic access. The problem of adapting the interface to different platforms can be addressed in many ways. Low-level syntactical transcoding or just resizing elements do not seem able to provide general solutions: they often generate poor results in terms of usability because they follow rigid rules and mainly try to fit the same design into different devices. This paper presents our solution, which is based on platform-dependent semantic redesign. Semantic redesign means that transformation from one platform to another is based on the use of semantic information and not only on the analysis of the low-level implementation. In our case, such semantic information is contained in logical descriptions of the user interfaces that also capture the possible tasks users intend to accomplish.