Generating Obligations, Assertions and Tests from UI Models

Abstract

Model-based development of interactive systems provides a number of benefits which can support the creation of robust and correct systems, particularly important when the interactive systems are safety-critical. Many different approaches have been proposed which target the models at different aspects of the development process (for example task analysis, interface layouts, functional behaviours etc.) and which can be used in different ways (verification of correctness, plasticity, usability). One of the aims for any modelling method should be simplicity - we are after all trying to hide complexity via abstraction in order to make reasoning about systems more tractable than working at the programming level. One of the challenges that exists however we do our modelling is ensuring the consistency between the model of the interface and interactivity and model of the functional behaviour of the system. This is primarily due to the different types of models that most naturally describe these different elements. In this paper we propose a method of tightening the integration of models of these different components of the system by generating obligations which explicitly describe the coupling of functional behaviour with interactive elements. We then show how these obligations can be used to support the development process during the programming and testing of the system.