Designing for resilience to hardware failures in interactive systems: A model and simulation-based approach

The paper proposes a formal description technique and a supporting tool that provide a means to handle both static and dynamic aspects of input and output device configurations and reconfigurations. More precisely, in addition to the notation, the paper proposes an architecture for the management of failure on input and output devices by means of reconfiguration of in/output device configuration and interaction techniques. Such reconfiguration aims at allowing operators to continue interacting with the interactive system even though part of the hardware side of the user interface is failing. These types of problems arise in domains such as command and control systems where the operator is confronted with several display units. The contribution presented in the paper thus addresses usability issues (improving the ways in which operators can reach their goals while interacting with the system) by increasing the reliability of the system using diverse configuration both for input and output devices.