Usable and interactive application generator for Digital TV

Abstract

Interactive Digital TV (iDTV) enhances viewers’ experience and participation by engaging them with an active role. The development of interactive software requires the employment of usability criteria to provide satisfactory experiences for users. In addition, the diverse characteristics of television programs require efficient processes for interactive software development. In Latin America, the process of implementing DTV is in progress, so the current stage of development of interactive applications is too incipient and immature to support industrial, quality-level development. This paper proposes combining software reuse strategies, specifically, software product lines (SPLs) and user-centered interaction design patterns, to improve productivity and quality. A generic feature model for the automatic generation of iDTV applications and an SPL-iDTV tool that supports the model are presented. The proposal is evaluated with two studies: an experiment that attempts to reproduce real application prototypes that were originally developed manually, through the use of patterns, and an evaluation of the quality of the SPL.