A DOM-based MVC multi-modal e-business

Abstract

The future will be characterized by the availability of multiple access channels that enable ubiquitous access to information and e-business applications. This ability to access and transform information via a multiplicity of channels appliances and modalities, each designed to suit the user's specific usage environment, necessarily means that these interactions will exploit all available input and output modalities to maximize the bandwidth of man-machine communication. There will be an increasingly strong demand for devices and browsers that present the same set of functionalities when accessing and manipulating the information, independently of the access device. The resulting uniform interface must be inherently multi-modal: the user can use multiple synchronized channels to access information and he or she can switch among channels at any time and seamlessly continue to interact with the application. This paper outlines how the DOM (Document Object Model) [10] enables the implementation of standard-based multi-modal browsers that follow the MVC principle prescribed for consistent multi-modal applications [11]. Built around the DOM, the architecture is modular and each module can be local or distributed. In addition, it does not require any modification of existing DOM compliant browsers. As such, a same approach can simultaneously address thin client and fat client approaches. Such approach also fits hybrid and multi-device browsing configurations. Eventually, it is not tight to particular underlying network and transport protocols. The MVC principle does not impose any particular underlying authoring methodologies for multi-modal applications. A single authoring approach is described in [12]. © 2001 IEEE.