Strong success stories of formal methods are relatively rare. This paper discusses a case study where the use of formal dialogue specification improved the efficiency of production by an order of magnitude. The actual example comes from some years ago, but this paper seeks to understand the reasons for success so that they can be reapplied to more advanced, but still often under-utilised, methods today. Two issues are dealt with in detail: interface state and the blending of formal and informal representations. The issues of state are also discussed in relation to the particular problems of web interfaces.
Keywords: formal methods, dialogue specification, web interfaces
|
