A Novel Design Approach for Multi-device Adaptable User Interfaces: Concepts, Methods and Examples

User interface designers and engineers are faced today with unprecedented challenges. Applications are progressively required to run on multiple computing platforms and accommodate the capabilities of different devices. Users and context are significantly characterized by diversity, leading to a very broad range of accessibility and interaction requirements and preferences that need to be adequately addressed. The current approach of designing separate user interfaces, one for each target use, is time consuming, error prone, and does not adequately addresses the challenges of cross-platform consistency, universal access and integration. To this end, this paper proposes a new integrative approach to multi-device user interface development for achieving device-independence by-design and further pursuing improved levels user experience for all through adaptive presentational models for various devices and contexts of use. Explanatory examples that were implemented in the context of the REMOTE R&D project are also presented.