Workflow-oriented prototyping for the development of interactive software

Nowadays interactive systems cannot be developed in isolation from workflows and the application domains they are embedded in. Unfortunately, a conceptual gap exists between design representations for interactive systems and workflow specifications. This gap leads to a situation in which it can be checked in a very late stage of development whether an interactive system actually fits into a particular workflow or not. If not, redesign is required and the development costs may be increased dramatically. In order to avoid this worst case, the authors introduce a framework and environment that allows the refinement of workflows to system functions at an implementation-independent layer. In addition, TADEUS (Task Analysis/Design/End User Systems) supports workflow driven prototyping. Developing interactive systems this way not only removes the conceptual gap between workflow models and user interface design representations, but also provides early feedback for the developers through the interpretation of the design representations