Experience in model-driven UI-development using a MDA-compliant framework

The success of a company depends directly on its ability to quickly adapt to changing market requirements. One means for reaching this goal is reuse technology. Reuse, known since the beginning of computer science (e.g., reuse of command sequences), has been raised to the level of components. Component-based development promises fast development of software systems by assembling pre-fabricated building blocks or components. Although, this is a step into the right direction, the biggest remaining problem is that a system should be compatible with as many commonly used implementation and middleware technologies as possible, particular those that are either de facto or de jure standards. This is the goal of the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach, which is based on the concept that the essential structure and behavior of a system should be captured in an abstract way so that it can be mapped flexibly to different implementation technologies. When applying the MDA approach to the development of user interfaces, systems can be easily ported or deployed to different platforms. Good examples are web-based applications which can be used on mobile phones, PDAs, portable computers, etc. without the need for developing different interface implementations. This paper presents an experience report concerning the application of an integrated modeling approach for reusable user interfaces, and shows how modeling and MDA can be efficiently used in practice.