The Problem

Hi friends,I think now your are clear why do we need human interaction in a business process. Let me go ahead with our project idea.

WSO2 , an opensource middleware company in Sri Lanka has developed a Business Process Server . There we can deploy business processes written in WS-BPEL (Web Services Business Process Execution Language). To get the human interaction in the middle of a business process the human tasks are written in WS-Human Task. It will invoke the WSDL when a human interaction is needed.

A user interface (UI) is needed to get the human interaction to a business process. Currently the UI is limited to a textbox and a submit button and it is automatically generated using JSP. In Shahani madam's words "it is ugly as ever". A textbox and a submit button is not enough to capture the various types of user inputs. With the limited features in the UI users can do lots of mistakes.

As an example they can enter anything where they only supposed to type their gender in the textbox. But there will not be any mistakes if we put two option buttons grouped together to get the gender input.

Our project is to address these issues and come up with a solution to design UIs considering the best practices of User Interface designing, a sub area of Human Computer Interaction. The designed UIs should also be displayed in the web browsers and android phones.

I will write you about our proposed solution in my next post.

take care friends.