Visual prototyping design support system using message sequence rules for communication network services

The authors propose a visual prototyping design support system to facilitate designing such distributed communication software as telecommunication services. The system employs message sequence construction rules to design all possible interactions among communication processes and service users. The rules can be obtained through generalization of various message sequences in existing services and are described by temporal relations among those messages. When a typical message sequence in a target service is given, the system generates alternative message sequences by applying the rules to the sequence, and then presents them to a designer through visual interfaces. Using several telecommunication service examples, the rules and the system capabilities are shown