Context-Driven Generation of Specifications for Interactive Information Systems

Content-intensive, interactive information systems have become an integral component of computer infrastructure. Applications become increasingly complex. Meanwhile, the information system technology has evolved to a very large extent. Methodologies for developing large information systems have not evolved in the same speed. We also observe an impedance mismatch between software engineering and database development methodologies.

The complexity of user interaction requires anticipating system behaviour on both application and database sides. Varying utilisation scenarios require adaptable functionality. Another challenge are data model modifications, as necessary application code changes often exceed the capabilities of common software parameterisation techniques. A generic architecture for such systems has been missing so far. We develop a method for specifying software functionality, based on computational linguistics and allowing to define generic specifications of system functionality and provide them to users under varying application contexts, constraints, and data models. A formal notion of genericity is introduced for comparing information system behaviour.

The method supports stepwise transformation of specifications, starting from a specification close to natural language, and finishing with an executable prototype. The transformation is interactive, supporting design decisions according to validation results at each refinement stage. The proof of concept is given by a prototype generation framework.