Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'User-oriented services'

In November 2012 Uppsala County Council (UCC) introduced an eHealth service, ‘My Health Record’, that gives all inhabitants over age 18 in Uppsala County access to their health records online. However, this service has not been evaluated before this study. We conducted an interview study, based on User Experience (UX) and Patient empowerment, with users of ‘My Health Record’ to get their opinions, and to see if and how the service can be improved. Our findings shows that the users are positive to the service and the aspects that can be improved mostly concern information and communication. Based on these results, we propose design principles as well as concrete design proposals which can be useful for re-designing the service as well as inspiration for similar projects. Additionally, an interesting finding is that the interviewees had very few opinions and complains on the actual interface, which could mean that the content (the health record) is so interesting that the interface becomes almost “invisible”. A conclusion we make is that UX and Patient empowerment is a good fit for each other, and that UX has advantages over traditional usability in services like this.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007.
Title from PDF title page (viewed Feb. 4, 2010). Additional advisors: Barrett R. Bryant, Chittoor V. Ramamoorthy, Jeffrey H. Kulick, Gary J. Grimes, Gregg L. Vaughn, Murat N. Tanju. Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-183).

World Wide Web (WWW) has become the greatest repository of information that man has ever assembled and it is continuously growing. WWW transformed itself into a generative environment that fosters innovation through the advance of technologies and a shift in people's perception of the Weband how they use it. The new WWW or Future Internet is that of an Internet of Services and Internet of Things.Naturally, a series of questions arise from this context: how do you filter things to create more value than you currently get? how do you aggregate things in an intelligent and easy way instead of doing it in your head? The world cannot be described unambiguously, so how can you allow users to deal with the world in their own way, based on their understanding? Levine in his book "Cluetrain manifesto" was arguing that markets are conversations so how can users be involved in the conversation? how can users be empowered with easy consumption of the services, information, things that they found around?However design and deployment of such software capable of direct interaction and empowerment of the end-user is still an issue. We have on one side users that have ideas, but do not have technical background and lack programming skills to do the development by themselves. On the other side, we have large amounts of data, resources and services that could be aggregated both in terms of data, but most important in terms of behavior to innovate and create new things.Our goal in this thesis is to address this lack of tools that are capable of direct interaction andempowerment of end-users, in a unified manner. Thus our main contribution in this thesis is the development of a holistic approach for web based systems that are user-centric and that integrate data, services and behavior available on the Web 2.0.

Structural design of reinforced concrete structures requires involvement of many engineers who contribute to a single project. During the design process engineers have to exchange wide variety of information. Unmanaged data exchange may result in loss of resources. Developing a data model and setting up protocols for the management of data related to various structural design tasks can help to improve the quality of the structural design. In this study, an object oriented data model was developed for reinforced concrete beams. Geometry of the structure, detailed shape and placement of the reinforcement, and design specific information for beams were defined in the data model. Design code based computations are facilitated by developing a code library. Another focus of this study is developing a web based, platform independent data management and multi-user framework for structural design and detailing of reinforced concrete frames. The framework allows simultaneous design of a structure by multiple engineers. XML Web Services technology was utilized for the central management of design data. Design data was kept as XML files. Information was exchanged between the server and the engineer on a per-request basis. To design a beam strip, the engineer connects to the server and chooses a series of connected beams. The strip that is selected is locked for modifications of other engineers to prevent any data loss and unnecessary duplicate efforts. When the engineer finalizes the design of a beam strip, data is updated on the server and the lock for this strip is released. Between these requests no active connection is required between the engineer and the server. As a final task, the framework can produce structural CAD drawings in DXF format.

In design and detailing of a reinforced concrete frame project, there are many engineers who contribute a single project. Wide variety of information is exchanged between these engineers in design and detailing stages. If the coordination between engineers is not performed sufficiently, data exchange may result in loss of important information that may cause inadequate design and detailing of a structure. Thus, a data model developed for different stages of design and detailing of reinforced concrete structure can facilitate the data exchange among engineers and help improving the quality of structural design. In this study, an object oriented data model was developed for the design and detailing of reinforced concrete columns and beam column joints. The geometry of the structure, amount, shape and placement of reinforcement were defined in this data model. In addition to these, classes that facilitate the design and detailing of reinforced concrete columns and beam column joints according to a building codes were also developed. Another focus of this study is to develop a web based, platform independent data management and multi-user framework for structural design and detailing of reinforced concrete frames. The framework allows simultaneous design of a structure by multiple engineers. XML Web Services technology was utilized for the web based environment in such a way that the design related data was stored and managed centrally by the server in XML files. As a final step, CAD drawings of column reinforcement details in DXF format are prepared.

The last decade has attracted lot of research work in service-oriented computing (soc), giving raise to standardized architectures, protocols, and technologies that enable developers to easily expose and reuse services. however, these technologies do not fully consider the users as potential actors in the creation of services based on existing ones, as advocated in web 2.0 paradigm. in this thesis, after a deep investigation of soc and its intrinsic soa paradigm, we propose a new approach based on widgets. we propose the widget-oriented architecture (woa); a new paradigm to enable a user-centric service reuse. in addition, we introduce new innovative mechanisms based on the woa paradigm to overcome current limitations of soa in service composition and business process management fields. this new paradigm, along with the innovative architecture and mechanisms introduced, has been validated through implementation and testing.

Owing to a recent online trend of web 2.0, societies have emerged not only culturally but also technologically/virtually. This coupled with semantic web and Web Services have provided end-users with more opportunities to contribute to the web and consequentially have also multiplied their digital needs. One such requirement of a modern-day end-user is to combine the data, view and/or process presented across the web to suit his/her ephemeral needs by developing a novel application known as a service mashup. The end user development of mashup poses significant challenges to the end users. First challenge addressed in this thesis is the scope vs complexity challenge which refers to the impossibility of fully eliminating the technical barrier between a tool and the end user due to the corresponding complexity creeping in while developing new features in tool and extending its scope to provide added functionality. The second challenge arises from the utility=value/effort equation which implies that effort required in developing a mashup decreases the value and hence neutralizes the utility. Given these challenges and the related issues, I made three contributions. The central theme of my proposed approach - for managing these inherent challenges - is that the end user must be integrated into the process of a service composition application. My approach - A Goal-Oriented Mashup Development (GO-MaDe) framework defines, organizes and addresses the problems faced by end-users while composing their applications by proposing a new style of development in the mashup area in a bid to render irrelevant the underlying inherent tensions of the paradigm. My first contribution in this regard is a classification model that takes into account end user centered usability criteria for calibrating mashup tools efforts. Secondly, this research is the pioneer study about the integration of an agile-style analysis-cum-design phase into the mashup development process. Hence, it presents a redefined process of service-based applications development by introducing a spiral process model that introduces a phased, incremental concept of mashup development lifecycle. Based on the spiral model, I have presented a method (KAReM) annotated with domain theory for better acquisition and representation of user requirements encompassed by the APIs or Web Services that are composed to develop a mashup by incorporating the dynamics of goal decompositions using goal based templates. It serves to enhance the end-user experience by facilitating them to explore the problem space and helping them derive the visual representations of their requirements which can then be translated into service compositions. To evaluate my contributions qualitatively and quantitatively I conducted literature reviews, and validated my framework by scenarios and a controlled experiment.

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) are being adopted by organisations in order to integrate disparate computational assets. A major hurdle they face is the decision on how to integrate the UI in an SOA. In addition, technological advances have allowed complex applications and complex user interfaces (UIs) to be realised and the increase in accessibility to computers enables a diverse population of users with different characteristics, preferences and needs to use these complex computer applications. Adaptive user interfaces (AUIs) have been proposed as a solution to cater for the differences in user traits by adapting the UI to meet the diverse needs of users. AUIs have, however, traditionally been developed using client/server architectures This research, therefore, set out to investigate how to develop an AUI using a service-oriented architecture (SOA). In order to successfully achieve the goal of this research, literature concerning SOAs was investigated to gain an understanding of SOAs. A literature review of AUIs was also undertaken to gain an understanding of AUIs. A model-based approach was used to develop a model for UI adaptation using knowledge gained in the literature reviews. The model generates different UIs depending on various users‘ inferred level of expertise. The model describes the interaction between AUI services that use design-time documents and run-time user-interaction to adapt the UI. A prototype of the model was implemented and evaluated using an evolution strategy devised to assess different aspects of the research. The evaluation strategy proved the following: The service components of the prototype adhere to SOA design principles; The implementation was effective based on software engineering metrics; and, The implementation was usable and did not negatively affect the performance of users. The successful implementation of the prototype provides evidence that the design of AUIs using SOA is feasible. This dissertation therefore makes a contribution to the development of AUIs using SOAs. The model could be used to provide UI adaptation for business software applications.

In the context of building software systems, Service-oriented Systems (SOS) have become one of the major research topics in the past few years. In SOS, services are basic functional units that can be created, invoked, composed, and if needed deleted on-the-fly. Since these software systems are composed of different services there is no easy way to assure the Quality of Service (QoS), therefore, formal specification of both functional and extra-functional system behaviour, compatibility, and interoperability between different services have become important issues. As a way to address this issues, resource-aware timing behavioural language REMES was chosen to be extended towards service-oriented paradigm with service specific information, such as type, capacity, time-to-serve, etc., as well as Boolean predicate constraints on control flow guarantees. In this thesis we present a design framework that provides a graphical user interface for behaviour modelling of services based on REMES language. NetBeans Visual Library API is used to display editable service diagrams with support for graph-oriented models. A textual dynamic service composition language was implemented, together with means to automatically verify service composition correctness. We ensure also an automated traceability between service specification interfaces, where both modelling levels are combined in an efficient tool for designing SOS.

L'informatique pervasive (ou ubiquitaire) est un support pour des environnements contenant denombreux objets (ou dispositifs) disséminés, équipés d'électronique et interconnectés. Ces dispositifsfournissent un accès distant à une multitude de fonctionnalités qui nous aident dans notre vie quotidienne.Les Architectures Orientées Services sont adaptées à la conception de logiciels pervasifs. En effet,chaque dispositif fournit son propre ensemble de fonctionnalités sous la forme de services. Ainsi, enl'absence de mécanisme complémentaire, les utilisateurs se trouvent limités à utiliser les servicesisolément alors que leurs besoins correspondent à des scénarios qui impliquent une composition demultiples services offerts par plusieurs appareils.Dans cette thèse, nous défendons qu'un système pervasif doit : d'une part, permettre aux utilisateursd'exprimer facilement leurs besoins en créant des scénarios et d'autre part, proposer à ses utilisateursune représentation et des moyens de gestion de leur contexte afin qu'ils puissent tirer le meilleur parti deleur environnement et de ses changements. De plus, la présence de plusieurs utilisateurs implique lanécessité de collaborer. Par ailleurs, l'exécution de scénarios doit être résiliente aux changementsenvironnementaux et aux actions des utilisateurs. Elle doit ainsi s'adapter dynamiquement et, si possible,tirer profit du contexte et des changements de l'environnement.Notre contribution, nommée SaS (Scenarios as Services), répond à ces objectifs. Elle propose uneapproche interopérable capable de s'adapter à l'environnement. Elle fournit une représentation persistanteet personnalisable du contexte et inclut un langage de description de scénarios destiné aux utilisateurs.Ces scénarios sont facilement contrôlables, personnalisables et réutilisables. Elle planifie l'exécution pasà pas des scénarios, afin de s'adapter aux changements de l'environnement et de bénéficier desavantages de la mobilité des utilisateurs (exécution d'un scénario, dans la durée, sur plusieurs lieux).Enfin, elle inclut le partage de scénarios qui permet aux utilisateurs de collaborer. Un prototype de SaS,basé sur des normes industrielles (telle qu'OSGi), prouve la faisabilité de notre contribution et nouspermet de l'évaluer sur un cas d'étude simple
Pervasive (or ubiquitous) computing is a paradigm for environments containing distributedinterconnected devices that embed electronics. These devices provide a remote access to numerousfunctionalities that assist us in our daily life. Service-Oriented Architectures are suitable to design softwarefor pervasive environments. Indeed, each device provides its own set of functionalities as services.Without any extra mechanism, users can only use a single service at a time. Nevertheless, their needsusually correspond to scenarios which involve a composition of multiple services, provided by multipledevices.In this thesis, we advocate that a pervasive system must, on the one hand, enable users to easily expresstheir needs through scenario creation and, on the other hand, propose to users a representation of theircontext so that they can benefit from both their environment and its changes. In addition, the presence ofseveral users implies that users must be able to collaborate.Our contribution, named SaS (Scenarios as Services), fulfils these requirements. It proposes aninteroperable approach that adapts to its environment. It provides users with a customizable andpersistent representation of their context and includes a scenario description language targeted to users.Scenarios are easy to control, customize and reuse. SaS schedules the step-by-step execution ofscenarios to adapt to environmental changes and benefit from user mobility (scenario execution split over time on successive distinct sites). Finally, SaS includes scenario sharing mechanisms which are abasis for collaboration. A prototype of SaS, based on industrial standards (e.g., OSGi), proves thefeasibility of our contribution and serves for its evaluation on a simple use case

O número de dispositivos conectados e presentes na vida dos usuários é expressivo e a realização de atividades utilizando múltiplos dispositivos já é uma realidade. Entretanto, o uso integrado e sinérgico desses recursos, a que se denomina interação distribuída, tem encontrado empecilhos nas limitações dos sistemas em prover e atender interações dos usuários que atravessem as fronteiras do dispositivo. A diversidade de plataformas, bem como das áreas de pesquisa envolvidas são também forças contrárias à interação distribuída. O objetivo desta pesquisa, portanto, está em definir uma arquitetura que facilite a construção de aplicações observando aspectos de uma interação distribuída, na qual usuário e dispositivo não se acoplem unicamente no modelo de interação 1 usuário:1 dispositivo. Definiu-se uma arquitetura orientada a serviço, após pesquisa exploratória e sistemática acerca de frameworks e middlewares que promovem a integração entre dispositivos, e verificou-se sua viabilidade por provas de conceito. Como resultados, obteve-se um padrão de transições necessários para a construção de diversos cenários de uso e uma arquitetura orientada a serviços P2P dirigida a eventos que permite a implementação e execução desses cenários.
The number of connected devices and present in the lives of users is currently expressive and performing activities using multiple devices is already a reality. However, the integrated and synergistic use of these resources, which is called distributed interaction, has found obstacles in the limitations of current systems to provide and attend user interactions that cross the boundaries of the device. A variety of platforms, also involved research areas are contrary forces to the distributed interaction too. The aim of this research is therefore to define an architecture that facilitates the building of applications observing aspects of a distributed interaction, where user and device does not only bind in the interaction model 1 user:1 device. A service-oriented architecture has been defined, after exploratory and systematic research about frameworks and middlewares that promote integration among devices, and its feasibility has been verified by proofs of concept. As a result, we have obtained a pattern of transitions necessary for the construction of various usage scenarios and a P2P event-driven service-oriented architecture that allows implementation and execution of these scenarios.

Das Ziel des ServFace Projektes ist es Endnutzern ohne umfangreiche IT-Kenntnisse das einfache Erstellen von servicebasierten Anwendungen zu ermöglichen. Dazu wird ein Kompositions- werkzeug mit dem Namen “ServFace Builder“ verwendet. Das Werkzeug erlaubt es Endnutzern, interaktive Anwendungen durch die Komposition von Service-Operationen zu erstellen. Dafür ist eine grafische Repräsentation der Service-Operationen durch UI-Fragmente notwendig. Die UI-Fragmente werden im ServFace-Umfeld als Frontends bezeichnet. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Konzept zur automatischen Visualisierung dieser Frontends vorgestellt. Um das Ergebnis der Visualisierung zu verbessern, nutzt der Visualisierungsprozess neben der Service-Beschreibung weitere Informationen in Form von Annotationen und Gestaltungsempfehlungen. Konkret werden die folgenden Aspekte in dieser Arbeit beschrieben: • Visualisierung von Frontends zur Repräsentation von Service-Operationen auf Basis von Service-Beschreibungen, Annotationen, Plattformspezifikationen und Gestaltungsempfehlungen unter der Maßgabe der Gebrauchstauglichkeit und Nutzbarkeit. • Integration der Frontends in die jeweils aktuelle Instanzen des gegebenen Anwendungsmodells. • Technische Umsetzung und Evaluation der entwickelten Konzepte
The aim of the ServFace Project is to enable users with limited IT skills to easily create service-based applications. In order to do so, a tool called "ServFace Builder" has been developed. This tool allows users to build a composite application by combining several service operations. An important part of the ServFace Builder is the graphical representation of those service operations through user interfaces. This thesis describes an approach to automatically generate user interfaces for service operations. To enhance the graphical representation, the user interface generation process of the ServFace Builder comprises annotations and design recommendations next to the common service descriptions to enhance the result of the generation process. This thesis discusses: • Graphical representation of service operations on the basis of service descriptions, annotations, plattform specifications and design recommendations. • Integration of the graphical representation into the actual instance of the given application model. • Implementation and evaluation of the presented concepts

Organizations use Business Intelligence (BI) systems to monitor how well they are meeting their goals and objectives. Yet, very often BI systems do not include clear models of the organization’s goals or of how to measure whether they are satisfied or not. Several researchers now attempt to integrate goal models into BI systems, but there are still major challenges related to how to get access to the BI data to populate the part of the goal model (often indicators) used to assess goal satisfaction. This thesis explores a new approach to integrate BI systems with goal models. In particular, it explores the integration of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, a leading BI tool, with an Eclipse-based goal modeling tool named jUCMNav. jUCMNav is an open source graphical editor for the User Requirements Notation (URN), which includes the Use Case Map notation for scenarios and processes and the Goal-oriented Requirement Language for business objectives. URN was recently extended with the concept of Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to enable performance assessment and monitoring of business processes. In jUCMNav, KPIs are currently calculated or modified manually. The new integration proposed in this thesis maps these KPIs to report elements that are generated automatically by Cognos based on the model defined in jUCMNav at runtime, with minimum effort. We are using IBM Cognos Mashup Service, which includes web services that enable the retrieval of report elements at the most granular level. This transformation provides managers and analysts with useful goal-oriented and process-oriented monitoring views fed by just-in-time BI information. This new solution also automates retrieving data from Cognos servers, which helps reducing the high costs usually caused by the amount of manual work required otherwise. The novel approach presented in this thesis avoids manual report generation and minimizes any contract with respect to the location of manually created reports, hence leading to better usability and performance. The approach and its tool support are illustrated with an ongoing example, validated with a case study, and verified through testing.

碩士
明志科技大學
工業工程與管理研究所
99
The expanding global market in telecommunication services has continuously promoted users’ needs. Among various services by modern telecom providers, Interactive Voice Response System（IVR）is currently the primary channel for customer services. In reality, the development of the system framework for IVR and the subsequent Call Center Information System are mainly based on the perspectives from the internal function processes on the provider’s side, i.e., technical-function oriented. For most of the customer users who do not familiar with the technical processes in telecom services, however, may have greater chances of wasting times or making errors while interacting with these service systems which are not designed from their perspectives, i.e., user oriented. This thesis aims to establish a core analysis framework for the system improvement towards user-oriented customer services through conducting an empirical study in a telecom company. Sampled system records in IVR are extracted and linked with the transaction records by service agents. Individual interviews with customer service agents are also a primary part of the system analysis. The interview results show that the problematic repair service dispatch has to be resolved first, in order to promote customer service efficiency and to settle repetitive calls, and the agents’ proficiency in business inquiries is also critical to customer services. By further cross-referencing the results of system analysis and agent interviews, practical suggestions for system improvement towards a user-oriented customer service system are therefore elicited. Key words: Call Center Information System, IVR, User oriented

Service composition integrates existing services to fulfill specific tasks using a set of standards and tools. Existing service composition techniques and tools are mainly designed for SOA professionals. The business processes used in the service composition systems are primarily designed by experienced business analysts who have extensive process knowledge. Process knowledge is the information about a process, including the tasks in a process, the control flow and data flow among tasks. It is challenging for end-users without sufficient service composition skills and process knowledge to find desired services then compose services to perform their daily activities, such as planning a trip. Context-aware techniques provide a promising way to help end-users find services using the context of end-users. However, existing context-aware techniques have limited support for dynamic adapting to new context types (e.g., location, time and activity) and context values (e.g., “New York City”). To shelter end-users from the complexity of service composition, we present our techniques that assist non-IT professional end-users in service composition by dynamically composing and recommending services to meet their requirements. To acquire the desired process knowledge for service composition, we propose an approach to automatically extract process knowledge from existing commercial applications on the Web. By analyzing the context of end-users, our techniques can dynamically adapt to new context types or values and provide personalized service recommendation for end-users. Instead of requiring end-users to specify detailed steps for service composition, the end-users only need to describe their goals using a few keywords. Our approach expands the meaning of an end-user's goal using process knowledge then derives a group of tasks to help the end-user fulfill the goal. The effectiveness of our proposed techniques is demonstrated through a set of case studies.
Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-30 11:43:39.151

碩士
真理大學
企業管理學系碩士班
99
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) proposed by IBM is a system development framework for the rapid establishment of applications whose function needs are heterogeneous. The characteristics of SOA applications are their system functionalities are implemented by loosely coupled services and service package (Service encapsulation) features. As such, the development cost and time of SOA applications could be reduced to some extent. The concept of SOA is increasingly viewed as a new system design approach and has been discussed around the industry and academic communities. For example, the 11th WSEAS international conference held on 2007, the SOA-related technologies and tools have been discussed widely. SOA can not only quickly create and convert system functions if service demands of users are consistent but also can quickly respond to market trends. On the other hand, User Centered Design (UCD) is an iterative process through the development of a high degree of user acceptance of system. However, UCD approach will increase the system development cycle and cost as to face the issues of rapid changes of market environment. The proposed design of SOA to do with the combination of the two systems UCD on how user-centered design of digital machine ordering and heterogeneity of services catering to the digital environment, ordering local service-oriented architecture approach to remove unwanted service functions transferred to the new service environment, through the combination of the two concepts to cover the traditional HCI (Human-Computer Interface) can’t take into account shortcomings. Research is divided into two phases, the first stage of mainly mining demand service user's perspective, the way through the UCD meet user needs of the digital machine ordering services, due to different consumer groups dining environment with dissimilarity, it In this study, the type of the domestic food market segment selected for the development of digital machine ordering food and beverage industry to Wang Group's research objectives as the original restaurant burned, UCD method reference from the U.S. manufacturers IEDO product design, creative design, such as observation of five steps law, to pen and paper, cameras, recording, interviews, observation of the user to record behavior and discover the meal service users feel ill or need to improve the situation; brainstorming, the observation that the 78 services classification made after the original burned food restaurant industry based on environmental constraints and the importance of the consumer in mind to discuss the project, the final discussion of the original burning food were available to 37 services classified LEF (Lifestyle impact, Ergonomics, Features, LEF) three dimensions, based on lifestyle 『』, 『』 human factors engineering, 』『 Product Features five-point Likert scale in order to burn the restaurant to the original consumer questionnaires; rapid production services to the 37 Business Process Description Language (Business Process Execution Language, BPEL) defines the exchange of information and communication flow; repeated assessment, according to the previous step in the design of the services again or to discuss whether there is still a need to improve not apply to the part, if There are back to step one again without correction services are the next step; prototype reproduce, use Netbeans6.5.1 tools will BPEL services entity, to construct a system with SOA capabilities. The second stage combines the characteristics of loosely coupled service-oriented architecture for the digital machine ordering system functions through the XML format for information exchange across systems, the final findings of the original restaurant consumers to burn 15 to 20 years old, the most anticipated service feature for online shopping, dining restaurant environment, different consumer groups of tile city, mostly 36 to 50 years of age, the demand for services for the records of dining experiences, a la carte meals and other source material, the use of SOA design principles to provide the 12 burning restaurant services to quickly remove unwanted services, the establishment of new services to replace the environment for catering to different environments to achieve the rapid development of system design and take into account the advantages of the concept of user needs.

Research Context: With the recent maturity of various cutting-edge technologies, many industries have been motivated to adopt digital transformation in their business. In fact, an increasing number of companies that cling to traditional physical business channels, services, and methodologies start to face the real threat of being left behind. Not only these companies struggle to extend their market share, but also they can not retain their current clients and customers. On the other hand, the followers of the digitalization wave manage to survive and grow their business by integrating the opportunities of technology to drive success and innovation. In the retail industry, the famous example of the retail-lead Amazon, which started digital retail innovation two decades ago, can now be easily recognized. Nowadays, there are many successful digital innovations include Airbnb in lodging and housing, Uber and MyTaxi in transportation, Car2go in car sharing, and many more other examples in almost all fields. To this end, we can define service digitalization as the process of reshaping traditional analog/physical form of services with a new digital design that brings added value to both industries and their clients. One of the main reasons why some industries can not cope with the recent service digitalization trend is that they do not put enough effort and management attention into this digital transformation. For example, some companies succeed partially to define concrete regular plans for digitally revolutionizing their products but they rarely do that to the related services. Imagine the modern hospitals, where available medical devices, clinical tools, and healthcare-related products available to physicians have been updated regularly, while the service experience through the various practices and health processes is still the same as it was many years ago. Undoubtedly, the desired comprehensive digital change would be difficult to be applied with a large base of legacy assets optimized for a certain way of working. Despite that, many businesses focus their intention and employ their assets to harness digital technology, redefine service offerings, and improve the customer experience. As a result, they proceed to both lower their costs and gain a competitive advantage in their market. To support overcoming any issues and challenges that hamper a successful and comprehensive digital transformation in industries, we need to carefully consider all the factors that add to its success. Particularly, we aim to understand the evolving service digitalization landscape so that companies can learn to tap the potential for service innovation and seize the digitalization opportunities. To do so, we have discussed the main elements that draw jointly the promising service digitalization innovation as shown in Figure 1. These elements are divided into two main parts: the proposed principles of service innovation to be followed, and the recent evolving technological advents and trends that can be employed to drive the digitalization revolution. As for the first part, the proposed principles are: (i) systematic service innovation process, (ii) simple service delivery paradigm, and (iii) user-driven service design. The second part refers to the recent striking technological trends that are profoundly reshaping the future of service digitalization while being also promoted by the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution (or as referred to by the term "Industry 4.0"). These trends include but are not limited to the Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile and Pervasive Computing, Mobile Internet, Fifth-Generation Wireless Technologies (5G), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), 3D Printing, Robotics, etc. To sum up, exploiting these technological trends while following the indicated principles will eventually lead to the targeted service innovation, and altogether draw the promising service digitalization landscape. The main proposed principles are marked in blue, while the recent evolving technological trends are marked in red. One of the current game-changing technological trends that has a huge impact on the future of service digitalization is IoT, which refers to all the physical hardware devices (referred to as "things") that are employed into a specific space and connected over a network (e.g., Internet) so that they can communicate and interact (and possibly be monitored and controlled remotely). These connected devices, which are distributed through this space, collect data about their surroundings and perform corresponding actions (i.e., sensors and actuators). They can also share their collected and generated data among them in order to perform more complex actions within the whole space, through which this space can derive its smartness and can be interacted with as a unified coherent unit. In other words, connected hardware devices act actively and coherently influencing the whole environment at once, and the results of the actions influence the future computations of the devices themselves. The extension of this approach to every kind of environment is the conceptual base of Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing Systems. In order to understand the implied significance of IoT, we can imagine a world in which the environment interacts with its inhabitants. The indication here is not just providing a passive interaction, rather it involves the environment itself as an active participant. An environment that learns the inhabitants’ preferences and can help each of them in a personalized way. This environment can be considered a smart or intelligent space that has always had its charm on people’s imagination, as a symbol of technological progress and lifestyle of the future. This concept of smart space can be applied to a huge variety of environments including airports and train stations in transportation, hospitals and clinics in healthcare, schools and universities in education, museums and archaeological sites in tourism, stores and shopping malls in retail, etc. Unfortunately, the world is still far from the full implementation of this kind of scenario, but the scientific community started to put particular attention to the research fields strictly correlated to this topic. After all, IoT is a key ingredient towards a successful and comprehensive realization of smart spaces. As we are approaching the new era of smart spaces, the digitalization of the provided services in such spaces should evolve accordingly. In fact, smart spaces try to help their inhabitants by minimizing the needed physical and cognitive effort while accomplishing tasks, and therefore, providing a more natural interaction within the space. To that extent, the main goal should be developing digital services that exploit the new opportunities of smart spaces in order to support a natural user-oriented interaction in a way that minimizes the end user’s need to interact with computers as computers. In retail, for example, the self-checkout service can be redesigned innovatively in the context of a smart store. In such a store, the shopping cart can be dynamically assigned to its current user possibly by Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) card that securely identifies users and their preferred payment method. During the shopping process, the cart automatically identifies shopped items possibly by reading their barcodes. At the end of the shopping journey, the user can smoothly and quickly checkout from the store with only one click at the checkout Point Of Sale (POS) confirming all the shopping items and the final price. Such seamless interaction is the ultimate goal of exploiting smart space’s digital opportunities in the generation of new innovative digital services design in order to achieve satisfying User eXperience (UX). Failing to adhere to the full potential of smart spaces during the engineering process of the digital services will probably lead to a naive service design, which in turn can result in a bad UX. At this point, the provided UX is considered a key indicator of the quality of the interactive technological solution and a dominating factor for the success of any digital service. In general, UX can be referred to as the user’s perception of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) through a specific channel or device. In other words, it describes the user’s experience of using a software system deployed into a device or across a set of devices (i.e., interaction channels or touchpoints). By analyzing this concept in the field of digital services, it can be inferred that this experience will be based not only on the ‘look and feel’ of the developed User Interface (UI) but also on its practical aspects such as usability and efficiency. This means implementing more in-depth UX values while designing the digital service instead of focusing on how to employ advanced technologies and solve UI technical challenges, which in turn considers providing more user-driven functionalities rather than usable UI alone. In the context of smart spaces, providing innovative digital services requires a well-designed UX, which aims at investigating a comprehensive service design to derive a more natural interaction with both the physical and digital world of the space. First of all, this targeted design involves facilitating both direct and indirect users’ interaction with all the connected devices/objects employed into this space, while considering their proximity to the user (physically and psychologically) at the time of interaction. Moreover, the required design should support a consistent experience across all touchpoints in the space, which does not necessarily mean to implement identical interfaces for all interaction channels through the space but rather to ensure that users motivations and goals will be supported accordingly at each interaction channel, and therefore delivering the desired coherent experience in total. Furthermore, the design should follow a user-driven methodology that pays close attention to how the actual user will be using the service in the related defined context. Considering these aspects of a satisfying UX design for digital services in smart spaces will eventually support users in a successful and joyful accomplishment of required goals/tasks in such spaces while driving the related business success. Following this direction, many research work in HCI has been targeting how to customize applied technologies to meet humans’ natural interaction in various applications and contexts. In particular, User-Centered Design (UCD) approaches, which promote UX by putting the actual user at the center of the system’s design, implementation, and evaluation processes, have been studied. These approaches employ users’ cognitive abilities (such as perception, memory, learning, problem- solving, etc.) to steer a successful realization of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) applications and software solutions by anticipating and eliminating all the factors that can lead to a bad UX, and therefore, a possible failure. However, despite all the recent efforts, there is still no common accepted methodology to precisely define, measure, and evaluate UX and its factors in the research literature. This is particularly true in the context of smart spaces, where each connected object, device, or interaction channel that is used by some user in this space create possibly a completely new UX, which can be seen as a momentary, primarily, and evaluative feeling for that interacting user. Given these observations, a promising UX of digital services in smart spaces should shift the attention from all the expected touchpoints (related to each digital service) in the space to the humans and their feelings while interacting with them (the "user" side of the intended digital service). To conclude, in order to capture a positive UX that leads to an innovative digital service delivery in smart spaces, we need to adopt a customized UCD approach tailored to that context and the related defined scenario, which ensures a user-driven methodology throughout the whole system’s realization (i.e., design, implementation, and evaluation) process and iterative prototyping. Research Objectives and Contributions: In this thesis, we aim to investigate and exploit the role of applying UCD methodologies when realizing (i.e., designing, implementing, and evaluating) service digitalization in smart spaces in order to leverage positive UX, so that we can derive the required service innovation and success. In particular, we have chosen three case studies to analyze and validate the effectiveness of this approach. We have formulated our research objectives and the related contributions around the selected case studies as follows: • Localization as a Service: the first case study discusses the digitalization of localization services in smart spaces. More precisely, it targets the retail industry in which a smart retail space helps users (both customers and employees) to localize themselves, the available retail items, and possibly different store’s parts. As a result, an indoor navigation system can be built employing these localization services to guide users effectively while performing related tasks in this smart retail environment. While this proposed system can help customers through their shopping routine, the main purpose is dedicated to retail employees supporting them in the pick-&-pack order fulfillment scenario, and allowing them to easily manage items (e.g., inserting new items, updating current ones, etc.). Based on these details, the first objective of this thesis is to: O1. Define a methodology for a complete development of innovative digital localization services in a smart retail space (e.g., store or warehouse), which should support extant physical localization techniques in the space (e.g., a physical floor plan map, printed shelves numbers, etc.) while delivering a reliable and user-friendly digital indoor navigation system through the space, with a cost-effective added value. The proposed methodology must consider UX foundations while building the digital map of the retail space (knowing the store layout and where the items are located in the store dynamically), localizing persons within this map (calling for the selection of suitable technologies and technology combinations), and providing navigation and routing solution for retail employees mainly (which can be possibly extended later for customers too). Regarding the first objective O1, the following research contributions have been achieved: C1-1 Investigating UCD techniques to realize the proposed system while considering a real use case in the retail industry. C1-2 Performing a complete analysis of the requirements (both functional and non- functional) of the related retail partner. C1-3 Building task flow diagrams based on the expected positive UX flows through all possible encountered channels in the space while following the analyzed requirements. C1-4 Implementing a running prototype of the system that deploys the required digital localization service. C1-5 Validating the acquired UX through a robust evaluation user study considering main quantitative and qualitative measures related to the defined retail scenario. This research part was conducted in the context of an EU-research project called "FIRST": virtual Factories: Interoperation suppoRting buSiness innovaTion (EU-project number: 734599) within the programs RISE (Research and Innovation Staff Exchange) and MSCA (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions) and "Horizon 2020" [9]. The FIRST project includes different work packages in different areas related to automation and business innovation in the industry. In detail, the work was conducted in collaboration with a german retail-lead industry partner of this EU project called GK Software SE (EU-registration number: 918734628). While working on this project, a one-year secondment to this company office in Germany was arranged for better collaboration on the aforementioned topics. Besides this concrete research topic, the secondment included attending many seminars and presentations for different speakers from both academy and industry in various innovation topics regarding the retail industry. • Clinical Guidelines as a Service: Healthcare is considered one of the most important fields for human development, and a revolutionary industry with a significant business segment. Recent efforts try to ensure more efficient and personalized delivery of care procedures by enabling flexible access to medical and patient-related information empowered by advanced distributed clinical mobile technologies among healthcare practitioners. To that extent, this case study targets the healthcare industry and is directed towards providing the required clinical guidelines as a digital service to doctors while delivering the needed care to patients. In a smart healthcare space, this digital service can be deployed on mobile devices, and their execution and mobile orchestration among clinical staff can be further supported by the connected medical objects and devices employed in the space. In order to achieve the required structured implementation of the proposed service framework, the second objective of this thesis is: O2. Define a generic development methodology for realizing innovative digital services facilitating clinical guidelines enactment and fulfillment in a smart healthcare space (e.g., hospital or clinic). This methodology should provide a system that employs advanced technologies in such a space, with the main focus on utilizing clinical mobile technologies, to support doctors in a personalized and patient-centered delivery of healthcare operations. Besides, this methodology should promote positive UX practices of working doctors ensuring a patient-centered clinical operation in such a challenging environment by eliminating overwhelming cognitive and physical demands while allowing a non-invasive interaction with the system, which in total alleviates expected medical errors. Regarding the second objective O2, the following research contributions have been achieved: C2-1 Investigating UCD techniques to realize a digital clinical system that provides the required clinical guidelines as a digital service while addressing the chest pain clinical guideline as it is considered a common clinical case study in emergency healthcare. C2-2 Analyzing the general nature of healthcare processes and their related clinical tasks in chronological order, from patient registration until patient discharge, in order to correctly identify and collect the related clinical characteristics of the selected clinical guideline and derive corresponding patient-specific care pathways that can be digitally implemented. C2-3 Introducing a reasonable digital representation of the generated care pathways by utilizing the Process-Aware-Information-System (PAIS) model and exploiting concepts from Business Process Management (BPM) in order to ensure process-driven automa- tion and execution of clinical tasks following a proper enactment of the whole clinical guideline. C2-4 Harnessing the required positive UX by adopting a multimodal graphical user interface (GUI) with both vocal and touch interaction features coupled well with the process- driven execution of the clinical tasks. This multimodal interaction supports doctors to flexibly execute clinical guidelines, switching dynamically between the touch and hands-free (i.e., vocal) modes as required for the proper fulfillment of care procedures. C2-5 Implementing a running prototype of the system that deploys the required digital service, and validating the acquired UX through a robust user evaluation performed in a real hospital with the actual users (i.e., doctors) by analyzing the usability and effectiveness of the system. This research part was partially supported by the Sapienza grants TESTMED and SUPER and performed also in the context of the Centro Interdipartimentale "Information-Based Technology Innovation Center for Health” (STITCH). • Power Saving as a Service: in this case study, we aim to provide digital services for power saving in smart spaces. Such services include controlling lighting, ventilation, air conditioning, heating, etc., based on an auto-detection strategy of the inhabitants’ presence and their current location in such a smart space. This application tends to provide a power-saving solution with an added value in huge spaces with many changing inhabitants (i.e., too many inhabitants that dynamically enters/leaves/changes location within the space). Furthermore, it can be extended to many contexts like smart home, smart store, smart hospital, smart museum, etc. Considering UX measures of such application in smart spaces will be a dominant factor for its widespread and innovation success. Based on these details, the third objective of this thesis is to: O3. Introduce a user-oriented development methodology for digitalizing automated power- saving services in smart spaces (e.g., smart home), while focusing on lighting control as the main use case that can be extended to other use cases. This methodology should skillfully employ available advanced technologies that can be integrated into such a space in order to support its inhabitants while performing ongoing activities and related tasks. Additionally, positive UX practices should be considered carefully (e.g., how fast/smooth should light be turned on/off, handling multiple users at different zones at the same time, etc.) by observing the nature of the inhabitants’ navigation pattern influenced by their usual related tasks while being in the space. Such UX considerations should alleviate overwhelming cognitive and physical demands needed to simultaneously control many different power-consuming services and devices in the space, while effectively delivering the required power-saving feature. Regarding the third objective O3, the following research contributions have been achieved: C3-1 Investigating UCD techniques to realize a digital system that provides automated power-saving services for helping users to reduce and control power consumption while navigating the space based on the current location of the navigating user (i.e., using location-based services). C3-2 Analyzing the required technologies and related technical structure for implementing such digital services, while promoting simplicity and usability. C3-3 Implementing a running prototype of the system that deploys the required digital services while considering positive UX flows that space’s inhabitants would naturally adopt. This research part was conducted in collaboration with the "Service Computing Department" at Stuttgart University. Other Contributions: Since the start of the Ph.D. program, the conducted research activities related to applied HCI and UCD are distributed in various topics around service digitalization and targeted innovation to enrich the research perspectives and skills, and therefore, to guide the core outcome of this program which is presented in this Ph.D. thesis. Besides this final main outcome, other research activities are conducted targeting the evolution and application of UCD approaches. • Evaluating Humans Collaboration Attitude towards Service Robots in Symbiotic Autonomy Settings: given the aforementioned research objectives and the related selected case studies discussing the important role of applying service-oriented computing in localization, clinical guidelines, and power-saving while adopting UCD approaches to achieve the required service digitalization innovation, this part is directed towards the context of Robotics-as-a- service (RaaS) which has a significant trend in the future of digitalization and smart spaces. These RaaS units are considered part of Autonomous decentralized systems (ADSs), whose components are designed to operate in a loosely coupled manner and data are shared through a content-oriented protocol, which can be easily integrated with other IoT and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) [236, 302, 274]. In particular, this research is one of the initial efforts focusing on understanding the opportunities and challenges of integrating autonomous robots in future smart spaces, where the humans need to collaborate efficiently with them in performing tasks. To that extent, in order to operate in human-populated environments, robots need to show reasonable behaviors and human-compatible abilities. In the so-called Symbiotic Autonomy, robots and humans help each other to overcome mutual limitations and complete their tasks. When the robot takes the initiative and asks the human for help, there is a change of perspective in the interaction, which has not yet been specifically addressed by HRI studies. Based on these details, the fourth objective of this thesis is to: O4. investigate the novel scenario brought about by Symbiotic Autonomy in HRI, by addressing the factors that may influence the interaction. Regarding the fourth objective O4, the following research contributions have been achieved: C4-1 Introducing the term of “Collaboration Attitude” to evaluate how the response of users being asked by the robot for help is influenced by the context of the interaction and by what they are doing (i.e., ongoing activity). C4-2 Performing a first user study and presenting its results which confirms the influence of conventional factors (i.e., proxemics) on the Collaboration Attitude, while it suggests that the context (i.e., relaxing vs. working) may not be much relevant. C4-3 Performing a second user study to better assess the influence of the activity performed by the humans in our population, when (s)he is approached by the robot, as an additional and more compelling characterization of context (i.e., standing vs. sitting). While the experimental scenario takes into account a population with distinctive characteristics (i.e., academic staff and students), the overall findings of our studies suggest that the attitude of users towards robots in the setting of Symbiotic Autonomy is influenced by factors already known to influence robot acceptance while it is not significantly affected by the context of the interaction and by the human ongoing activity. Such findings can help to reshape innovative future RaaS design by anticipating such UX factors and addressing them skillfully in the service design. Chapter 5 discusses this research work related to UX validation via controlled user studies in the context of Symbiotic Autonomy, where humans’ collaboration attitude towards service robots was quantitatively and qualitatively measured and analyzed. This research part was conducted in collaboration with the Ro.Co.Co. Laboratory of the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering "Antonio Ruberti" at Sapienza University of Rome. • Evolving User-Centered Design towards Participatory Design in Service Digitalization: another research has been conducted discussing the promising evolution of UCD towards PD (Participatory Design) and the related role in delivering service digitalization innovation and success. Such evolution is directly related to the arising of new technologies ranging from smartphones to social networks which are constantly increasing interactions between people. In the ICT community, adapting technology to human nature is the key concern of UCD. However, UCD tends to neglect the emerging social dimension of technology: users are consulted in the design process, but they do not have any direct involvement or cre- ative control over the developed technological solutions. On the other hand, the collaborative and social nature of the design process is getting increasingly explicit in the Product Design community, where PD approaches are applied to involve stakeholders, designers, and end-users in the creative process of new products. Based on these details, the fifth objective of this thesis is to: O5. investigate how the integration of the unique features of PD into UCD can lead to innovation in the design process. We advocate that such innovation can be obtained by giving the right voice not only to the users who reach consensus in the design process but also to the marginals. Regarding the fifth objective O5, the following research contributions have been achieved: C5-1 Providing a deep analysis of the state of the art of Participatory Design in both ICT and Product Design communities. C5-2 Providing an exploratory model with some experiments to create innovation in the design process. C5-3 Introducing a Visual Analytics system to support the user interaction in the participative process. This research is detailed in Chapter 6 that discusses how to push forward UX of digital services by evolving UCD towards PD in which actual users participate actively in the whole design and prototyping process of the software (similarly to the product design process). This research part was conducted in collaboration with the HCI Laboratory of the Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering "Antonio Ruberti" and the Department of Planning, Design, and Technology of Architecture at Sapienza University of Rome.

Service composition is a process by which the services offered by devices may be combined to produce new, more complex services. In a pervasive computing environment where many devices exist and offer services, it is particularly desirable to fully automate this composition so end users do not need to be technically sophisticated. Earlier work done by Pourreza introduced a system to do fully automated service composition and to rank the services so produced by order of expected usefulness to the end user(s). My thesis research extends the work done by Pourreza in two ways. First, and most importantly, it adds support for services that have associated Quality of Service (QoS) characteristics. This allows me to ensure that I only generate composite services that are compatible in terms of the provided and required QoS characteristics of their component services. Further, it allows me to rank the generated composite services based on how well they meet the desired QoS preferences of users. Second, I extend Pourreza’s work by adding support for compositions involving services from outside a persistent computing environment (e.g. those provided via available Internet or 3G network access). I have built a prototype for the system to illustrate feasibility and to assess the overhead of supporting QoS in composition. I have also developed a regression model (based on collected user input regarding QoS preferences for services) that can be used to effectively rank compositions based on QoS for a variety of persistent environments. My results show that my approach is both feasible and effective.

博士
國立交通大學
資訊管理研究所
99
With rapid development of service-oriented architecture and cloud computing, web services have been widely employed on the Internet. Quality of service (QoS) is a very important criterion for service consumers to measure and select services. The selection of web services with respect to non-functional QoS criteria can be considered as a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problem when multiple consumers need to share a service. This study presents an evaluation method based on the technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution to help service consumers to select web services in a fuzzy environment. The linguistic variables, parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers, are used to evaluate the weight of various criteria and the ratings of each alternative web service. Then the fuzzy TOPSIS method is employed to transform the linguistic terms into crisp numbers and obtain the preference order of available alternative web services. This paper describes a framework which is featured by integrating fuzzy TOPSIS and service component architecture to facilitate web service selection and to effectively satisfy a group of service consumers’ subjective requirements and dynamic preferences on a cast study on intelligent environment. The proposed framework is also able to re-aggregate users’ feedback on the services which are air-condition, dehumidify, and lighting service. User could evaluate these services and find out the group consensus. We also design a simulated environment that includes 8*8 LED matrix on a circuit board that corresponds to an office with different appliances to demonstrate the dynamic service selection and binding. The simulation is used to assess the computational efficiency of the fuzzy TOPSIS method and the flexibility and efficiency of the proposed system. We also apply the proposed method into a project of ICT for energy efficiency. It not only collected electronic current but also analytic the status of power consumptions from data center by ICT. It helps users to form the consensus on energy-saving and service-using.

碩士
輔仁大學
資訊管理學系
97
Although SMEs react rapidly to the environment changes with their flexible organization structures, it is not easy for their information systems to change accordingly. End User Development (EUD) is a research area about the issues of constantly developing information systems by the end users to match their changing requirements. Different from the Component Based Architecture in the previous researches, this study bases on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Business Process Management (BPM). With the loose coupling characteristic of SOA, the integration of BPM and SOA realizes the system design based on service composition and process orientation concepts. That makes the information systems not only more flexible but also more consistent to the end users’ understanding of the business processes. This study combines SOA and BPM to investigate the possibility of the realization of EUD, and proposes a system architecture that meets the information system customization requirements of SMEs.

碩士
國立成功大學
資訊工程學系碩博士班
95
This study proposed a Real-time Adaptive Multimedia service (RAM) framework by integrating multimedia servers with UPnP protocol and OSGi platform, in which diverse multimedia services are achieved, e.g. Digital TV, music, real-time surveillance and video streaming services. The implementation of RAM is based on the existing OSGi platform where one UPnP base driver and several service bundles are implemented and utilized. UPnP base driver provides an interface between OSGi platform and UPnP devices, hence users can command and access multimedia service via this interface. For multimedia services, Quality of Service (QoS) is a critical consideration. In order to achieve high QoS to users, a User-oriented Quality of Service Guarantee scheme is proposed in RAM. Using this scheme, some information such as user’s preference, hardware capability and network capacity, will be collected to assist QoS decision when users request a multimedia service. After the QoS decision is executed, OSGi will call transcoding service bundle to perform transcoding service. Compared with traditional transcoding server, transcoding service in this paper is convenient and transparent to users. In other words, users need not care how, where, and when to use transcoding service. Consequently, RAM provides a convenient integration platform to users who can access diverse high quality multimedia services and satisfy their requirement at home.

碩士
國立屏東科技大學
資訊管理系
90
We proposed the Dynamic User-Oriented QoS Framework (DUQF), which provides the effective adaptation control schemes for dynamic QoS specification and mapping based on the combination of DiffServ and IntServ network architecture. A DUQF network consists of a DiffServ WAN and lots of attached IntServ LANs that connect to each other via a RSVP-aware router and a differentiation edge router, respectively. In an IntServ LAN, we designed the User-oriented Dynamic QoS Specification and Mapping (UDQSM) system to adaptively achieve QoS specification and mapping at the application layer. In the DiffServ of DUQF, we proposed the Dynamic QoS Queue Mapping (DQ2M) algorithm to increase the utilization of network resources and find the most appropriate service class that the media packets should map in an edge router of the DiffServ network.

Das Ziel des ServFace Projektes ist es Endnutzern ohne umfangreiche IT-Kenntnisse das einfache Erstellen von servicebasierten Anwendungen zu ermöglichen. Dazu wird ein Kompositions- werkzeug mit dem Namen “ServFace Builder“ verwendet. Das Werkzeug erlaubt es Endnutzern, interaktive Anwendungen durch die Komposition von Service-Operationen zu erstellen. Dafür ist eine grafische Repräsentation der Service-Operationen durch UI-Fragmente notwendig. Die UI-Fragmente werden im ServFace-Umfeld als Frontends bezeichnet. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Konzept zur automatischen Visualisierung dieser Frontends vorgestellt. Um das Ergebnis der Visualisierung zu verbessern, nutzt der Visualisierungsprozess neben der Service-Beschreibung weitere Informationen in Form von Annotationen und Gestaltungsempfehlungen. Konkret werden die folgenden Aspekte in dieser Arbeit beschrieben: • Visualisierung von Frontends zur Repräsentation von Service-Operationen auf Basis von Service-Beschreibungen, Annotationen, Plattformspezifikationen und Gestaltungsempfehlungen unter der Maßgabe der Gebrauchstauglichkeit und Nutzbarkeit. • Integration der Frontends in die jeweils aktuelle Instanzen des gegebenen Anwendungsmodells. • Technische Umsetzung und Evaluation der entwickelten Konzepte
The aim of the ServFace Project is to enable users with limited IT skills to easily create service-based applications. In order to do so, a tool called "ServFace Builder" has been developed. This tool allows users to build a composite application by combining several service operations. An important part of the ServFace Builder is the graphical representation of those service operations through user interfaces. This thesis describes an approach to automatically generate user interfaces for service operations. To enhance the graphical representation, the user interface generation process of the ServFace Builder comprises annotations and design recommendations next to the common service descriptions to enhance the result of the generation process. This thesis discusses: • Graphical representation of service operations on the basis of service descriptions, annotations, plattform specifications and design recommendations. • Integration of the graphical representation into the actual instance of the given application model. • Implementation and evaluation of the presented concepts.

Owing to a widespread trend of globalisation and service economies, there are exponentially increasing demands for Software-Intensive Systems (SIS) in general, and Service-Oriented Systems (SOS) in particular. However, it presents great challenges to develop and manage these systems. Although current research and practice provide various means to attack these challenges, there are many difficult impediments to overcome. This research is motivated by such demands, challenges, and opportunities. The ultimate objective is to understand and address the critical challenges of services engineering. To do so, we develop a multi-phased and iterative research methodology that is adapted from typical applied science research methodologies, in order to suit the exploratory nature of this research. According to the research methodology, we investigate and analyse the special characteristics of services engineering, such as a high degree of complexity, uncertainty, and volatility. Moreover, some existing approaches and related work are studied and analysed in a critical way. We conclude that the great difficulties of services engineering are fundamentally caused by a lack of disciplined engineering approaches that take into account the rapidly co-evolving socio-technical environments, where both human intellectual capacities and engineering competence need to be well understood and exploited. To realise our vision, we derive a generic engineering framework based on generalisation of other engineering disciplines, based on which, a services engineering framework called Organic Aggregation Services Engineering Framework (OASEF) is proposed. OASEF contains a theoretical foundation that consists of complementary theories and knowledge from multiple disciplines. Some important concepts are also defined, such as services engineering, models and modelling, and Socio-Technical Environments (STE). Moreover, OASEF contains some guiding principles that provide important guidance for the design and realisation of SOS and services engineering. Based on these conceptual resources, a profound concept called organic aggregation is developed, which takes an organic and synthetic approach to grow and manage systems of any kind. Furthermore, OASEF also incorporates: 1) a generic conceptual process model called Organic Aggregation Process (OAP) in support of organic aggregations of human intellectual and technical capacities; 2) a fully integrated model-driven method to realise OASEF/OAP activities in a systematic and automatic way; 3) a range of domain-specific and general purpose modelling languages for OASEF activities; 4) a mechanism to capture and reuse engineering capacities and to realise automatic system generation; and 5) an integrated tool environment in support of OASEF. Two controlled proof-of-concept case studies are conducted in real world settings, which aim to evaluate and improve OASEF concepts, methods, and mechanisms. Results show that OASEF helps to manage system complexity, agility, and productivity when engineering SOS. Some limitations and insufficiencies are also observed, which require future research. Although this research mainly focuses on SOS and services engineering, its engineering framework, or more specifically, the theoretical foundation, guiding principles, and generic process model, can be applied within a wider scope of software engineering and systems engineering.