Model-driven development and evolution of customized user interfaces

One of the main benefits of model-driven development of User Interfaces (UIs) is the increase in efficiency and consistency when developing multiple variants of a UI. For instance, multiple UIs for different target users, platforms, devices, or for whole product families can be generated from the same abstract models. However, purely generated UIs are not always sufficient as there is often need for customizing the individual UI variants, e.g., due to usability issues or specific customer requirements. In this paper we present a model-driven approach for the development of UI families with systematic support for customizations. The approach supports customizing all aspects of a UI (UI elements, screens, navigation, etc.) and storing the customizations in specific models. As a result, a UI family can be evolved more efficiently because individual UI variants can be re-generated (after some changes have been applied to the family) without losing any previously made customizations. We demonstrate this by thirty highly customized real-world products from a commercial family of web information systems called HIS-GX/QIS.