KaMobile

End-User Development for Deutsche Telekom

A large majority of the users of smart phones and communicating PDAs never really customize their devices and thus forego many services and applications that could have been useful or just nice to have. Working with T-Laboratories and Siegen University, Fraunhofer FIT investigated ways to take the basic ideas of end-user development from computer applications to the PDA or smart phone.

The research on end-user development is motivated by the problem that, in a rapidly changing business environment, many IT systems under centralized maintenance cannot keep up with the speed of change, and looks for ways to involve the user/non-programmer in the adaptation to evolving requirements while preserving the integrity of the application.

For the services delivered to PDAs and smart phones, we established a synergistic combination of automatic adaptation with customization steps by the user. Initial prototypes were realized in the area of leisure-time sports and fitness activities.