Configuring common personal software: a requirements-driven approach

We investigate the personalization capabilities of common personal software systems. We use a typical e-mail client as an example of such a system, and examine the configuration screens it offers to its users. We discover that each configuration value reflects each of the ways with which the user goals can be satisfied. Thus, we construct a goal model in which alternative ways for satisfying high level goals are matched with alternative system configurations. This way, automatic configuration of the system by reasoning about the overlaying goal model can be achieved. We find that the vast majority of the configuration options that refer to system functionality can be configured using this method, facilitating thereby the personalization tasks for users with no technical background, and ensuring, at the same time, consistency and meaningfulness in the configuration result.