| Abstract |
In recent years, handheld devices are evolving from Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to direct competitors of laptop and desktop computers. The market for mobile platforms is growing two times faster than the market for traditional desktop computers. This diffusion of handheld devices allows users to access the Internet anytime and anywhere. However, most pages are designed with only a desktop audience in mind. This fact raises the need for automatic user interface adaptation mechanisms capable of providing mobile interfaces equally usable and functional with respect to their desktop versions.
This thesis proposes an automatic user interface adaptation mechanism that provides usable and accessible mobile interfaces. Two sets of parameters are taken into consideration during the adaptation process, the user characteristics (e.g., web familiarity, disability) and the context of use (e.g., device). The outcome is a consistent interface in which the final form of the elements of each page encapsulates interface design knowledge. The adaptation process is transparent to the end user, and provides graceful transformation of the navigation mechanism and the content of the adapted portal. Furthermore, the produced mobile interface preserves all the content and functionality of the desktop version.
As part of this thesis, a software library of adaptable interface artifacts with several alternative presentation styles was developed. These styles address different contexts of use, including, among others, accessible alternatives for blind and color blind users. A fully functional prototype portal was developed as a case study by means of this library and was evaluated. Two types of evaluation methods were used, a heuristic evaluation with design experts and a subjective evaluation with end users. The results indicated that the overall user experience and the interface quality are quite satisfying for the end users.
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A Development Library for the Automatic User Interface Adaptation of Web Portals on PDA Devices
