Considering context and users in interactive systems analysis

Abstract

Although the take-up of formal approaches to modelling and reasoning about software has been slow, there has been recent interest and facility in the use of automated reasoning techniques such as model checking [5] on increasingly complex systems. In the case of interactive systems, formal methods can be particularly useful in reasoning about systems that involve complex interactions. These techniques for the analysis of interactive systems typically focus on the device and leave the context of use undocumented. In this paper we look at models that incorporate complexity explicitly, and discuss how they can be used in a formal setting. The paper is concerned particularly with the type of analysis that can be performed with them.