Exploratory study on the use of software product lines in the development of quality assistive technology software

Abstract

The use of Software Product Line for the development of Assistive Technologies has not been widely explored yet. However, some studies point to the viability of using this approach to develop Assistive Technology software. Through this approach, important limiting factors to use Assistive Technologies can be overcome. These factors are related to the acquisition costs and difculty to fnd products corresponding to specifc and varying user needs. Considering that Software Product Line approach provides mass customization of software products, the specifc needs of each user can be more easily satisfed by software developers. Furthermore, the reuse of code artifacts to development provides a fall in the acquisition cost of these software products. We present in this paper a literature review that aims to investigate how this approach has been applied to the development of Assistive Technology software. Also, we present some quality factors that should be considered to develop Assistive Technologies using Software Product Lines. Thus, the main fndings of the review are grouped in order to fnd the main gaps to be explored in future work.