International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering

This research draws on theories of emergence to inform the creation of an artistic and direct visualization. This is an interactive artwork and drawing tool for creative participant experiences. Emergence is characteristically creative and many different models of emergence exist. It is therefore possible to effect creativity through the application of emergence mechanisms from these different disciplines. A review of theories of emergence and examples of visualization in the arts, is provided. An art project led by the author is then discussed in this context. This project, Iterative Intersections, is a collaboration with community artists from Cerebral Palsy League. It has resulted in a number of creative outcomes including the interactive art application, Of me with me. Analytical discussion of this work shows how its construction draws on aspects of experience design, fractal and emergent theory to effect perceptual emergence and creative experience as well as to facilitate self-efficacy.

Visual Analytics (VA) is an approach to data analysis by means of visual manipulation of data representation, which relies on innate human abilities of perception and cognition. Even though current visual toolkits in the Business Analytics (BA) domain have improved the effectiveness of data exploration, analysis and reporting, their features are often not intuitive, and can be confusing and difficult to use. Moreover, visualizations generated from these toolkits are mostly accessible to specialist users. Thus, there is a need for analytic environments that support data exploration, interpretation and communication of insight that do not add to the cognitive load of the analyst and their non-technical clients. In this conceptual paper, we explore the potential of primary metaphors, which arise out of human lived and sensory-motor experiences, in the design of immersive visual analytics environments. Primary metaphors provide ideas for representation of time, space, quantity, similarity, actions and team work. Using examples developed in our own work, we also explain how to combine such metaphors to create complex and cognitively acceptable visual metaphors, such as 3D data terrains that approximate our intuition of reality and create opportunities for data to be viewed, navigated, explored, touched, changed, discussed, reported and described to others, individually or collaboratively.

To foster innovation and competition, an increasing number of software teams are becoming distributed. Such a distribution makes continuous collaboration and continuous awareness support a necessity and also a great challenge. Traditional desktop-based approaches are insufficient for the requirements of continuous awareness. In software development practice, an awareness tool on mobile devices is also desirable for team members to obtain the awareness information continuously. This paper addresses how to effectively present collaborative development activities using aesthetic visualization on mobile screens. Our approach supports multiple views suitable for software developers as well as team leaders. A baseline usability experiment and an eye-tracking experiment have evaluated the effectiveness and usability of the visualization method.

Visual notations are a key aspect of visual languages. They provide a direct mapping between the intended information and set of graphical symbols. Visual notations are most often implemented using the low level syntax of programming languages which is time consuming, error prone, difficult to maintain and hardly human-centric. In this paper we describe an alternative approach to generating visual notations using by-example model transformations. In our new approach, a semantic mapping between model and view is implemented using model transformations. The notations resulting from this approach can be reused by mapping varieties of input data to their model and can be composed into different visualizations. Our approach is implemented in the CONVErT framework and has been applied to many visualization examples. Three case studies for visualizing statistical charts, visualization of traffic data, and reuse of a Minard's map visualization's components, are presented in this paper. A detailed user study of our approach for reusing notations and generating visualizations has been provided. 80% of the participants in this user study agreed that the novel approach to visualization was easy and 87% stated that they quickly learned to use the tool support.

End-user development (EUD) is drawing an increasing attention due to the necessity of users to frequently extend and personalize their applications. In particular, EUD in the context of Web (EUDWeb) is focusing on technologies capable of supporting development tasks that the end-user feels more complex. However, although the specification and implementation of access control is perceived as a particularly complex task, little efforts have been made to support it within current EUDWeb environments. Thus, in this paper we propose an EUDWeb framework and tool for the specification and the generation of web applications embedding access control mechanisms. We extended a previous mockup-based EUDWeb approach, by introducing visual assistance mechanisms enabling the specification of role-based access control policies, and their integration within the application logic. The usability of the proposed framework has been evaluated by means of a user study, in which we have shown that a group of heterogeneous end-users could proficiently use the proposed framework to develop meaningful web applications, some of which including access control functionalities.

The implementation of three-dimensional visual languages requires a wide range of conceptual and technical knowledge on issues for 3D graphics and textual language processing. Our generator framework DEViL3D incorporates such knowledge and supports the design of visual 3D languages and their implementation from high-level specifications. Such 3D languages arise from different modeling domains that make use of three-dimensional representations, e.g. the "ball-and-stick" models of molecules. The front-end of a 3D language implementation is a dedicated 3D graphical structure editor, which offers interaction and navigation techniques to construct programs in their domain. These techniques allow to manipulate the 3D program directly using operations to insert, move, and restructure objects. We have developed canned solutions for all such techniques that are encapsulated in visual patterns, which are provided by our generator. The designer of a particular 3D language only has to apply visual patterns to constructs of the abstract syntax, which defines the basic structure of the language. We have complemented our development with a usability study. Participants had to solve several tasks with different interaction or navigation techniques. Furthermore, we equipped the 3D editors with the opportunity to let users gain an immersive 3D perception by using stereoscopic hardware.

In this paper, the authors propose the user evaluation support methods for IGA (Interactive Genetic Algorithm)-based 3D room layout generation. Although IGA is useful for applying the user preferences to the solution, IGA-based systems force users to evaluate a lot of individuals, causing the fatigue of operators. Therefore, we adopted the following methods in order to cope with the problem:

(a) Prediction of user preferences with a conjoint analysis.

(b) Individuals clustering with a self-organizing map.

To make a 3D scene such as a furniture layout, the IGA-based 3D room layout system is very helpful because it requires easy 3D graphics and manipulation only. The authors have been developing a web-based system that optimizes 3D room layouts based on user preferences. Finally, we tested the usefulness of our system with the demonstration, and had positive outcomes.

There is a class of complex problems where solutions must satisfy multiple subjective criteria, while meeting specific quantifiable constraints. Route planning for leisurely travel is an example of a problem in this class. Constraints including total available time, transit times, and one's budget and subjective interests determine whether a potential solution is acceptable to a prospective traveler.

In this paper we present a route planning (routing) interface that metaphorically leverages various elastic properties of a rubber band to allow for playful interaction with the relevant constraints. Each of these properties — attenuation, tension, and color — were integrated into an experimental system and then investigated in a series of task-based evaluations.

Our research shows this playful interaction enables potential travelers to explore the solution space in order to find a route that meets, not only the easily quantifiable constraints, but also their own subjective preferences.

Software Engineering (SE) and Knowledge Engineering (KE) are closely related disciplines with goals of turning the development process of software systems and knowledge-based systems, respectively, into engineering disciplines. In particular, they together can provide systematic approaches for engineering intelligent software systems more efficiently and cost-effectively. As there is a large overlap between the two disciplines, the interplay is vital for both to be successful. In this paper, we divide the intersection of SE and KE into three subareas, namely Knowledge-Supported Software Engineering (KSSE), Engineering Knowledge as a Software (EKaaS), and Intelligent Software System Engineering (ISSE). For each subarea, we describe the challenges along with the current trends, and predict the future research directions that may have the most potential for success.