Service Front Ends
The software technologies that will be developed for the Future Internet put the user at the centre of attention. The projects classified in "Service Front Ends" share the aim of empowering users to do things which they canâ??t currently do with software technology.
Some of the projects (FAST and m:Ciudad) go as far as enabling the user to develop their own services, whereas others support the userâ??s mobility (Persist and Open). ServFace will develop a methodology for developing stable and consistent user interfaces for service oriented architectures, to optimise the quality of experience for the user.
Creation of services by the end-user
Web 2.0 is the trend in the use of internet technology that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. Going beyond this, research into "Service Front Ends" aims to enable users to adapt, customise and control services according to their needs. Several projects are working in this area, producing software toolkits to support service users.
A simple example of such a toolkit is Google Gadgets â?? interactive mini-applications that can be placed anywhere on the user's desktop to show new email, weather, photos, and personalized news. Advanced users can program such gadgets and make them available to others.
The project FAST is extending the notion of gadgets to business process management services, enabling users to build gadgets that can connect with the back end systems of an enterprise.
The project M:Ciudad gives users the possibility to create, with their mobile devices, instant services, that will provide useful information to other, remote users. Specific research questions they are addressing are: What tools are required to allow each user with a mobile device to become a service provider? How should the mobile platform behave to make it simple to use and efficient? How can this type of distributed, volatile services and their associated knowledge or information be achieved? And how can the business opportunities this new scenario brings about are exploited?
Supporting users that are on the move
Users are increasingly mobile and require wire-free and nomadic access via a growing number of diversified communications devices and appliances. The project Persist will develop a personal smart space that is associated with the portable devices carried by a user.
It contains the user's profile and preferences and functionality for exchanging information with other smart spaces. When it comes in touch with another smart space, systems and applications might be adapted to the preferences of the user and relevant information might be exchanged. Just consider a not uncommon situation at a bus stop â?? Andy approaches the stop and would like to connect to the internet to discover when the next bus is due but he has no connectivity. Meanwhile, Betty, another passenger waiting for the bus, is accessing the internet via her UMTS connection. Bettyâ??s personal smart space automatically offers to act as a broker between Andy and her internet service provider, so she becomes a micro-operator for internet service provision. Another example of use is when you fall ill on vacation; the local doctor might access your health records stored in your personal smart space.
An entirely different approach to supporting users moving about freely is envisioned by the project OPEN. Their research will make it possible that users can continue the interaction with applications through a variety of interactive devices (including cell phones, PDAs, desktop computers, digital television sets, and intelligent watches). People can start an application on one device and when they need to move they can continue their session on another suitable device.
So-called migratory interactive services can support continuous task performance, implying that interactive applications are able to follow users and adapt to the changing context of use while maintaining their state.
Methodology for developing user interfaces for service oriented applications
The projects described so far focus on the end-user. The project ServFace distinguishes itself from that by focusing on the software developers. It will provide them with a methodology and tools to develop consistent user interfaces for applications developed in a service oriented manner. Such interfaces need to give the user a good quality of experience, even though the basic building blocks of the application (the individual services) have been designed in a loosely coupled way. ServFace will look at this process from two different perspectives:
First, the development of single services with corresponding user interface descriptions.
Second, the development of user interfaces for a composition of existing services. The methodology will be based on model driven development.
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