User intervention in self-adaptive context-aware applications

Self-adaptive context-aware applications are designed to take decisions automatically and to relieve the user from switching an application manually from one mode of operation to another. However, our experience with self-adaptive applications has shown that the user does not always appreciate being out of the decision loop. Autonomous application behavior may not always meet the user's expectations and adaptations may be inappropriate in certain situations. We investigated several techniques how to bring the user back into the loop. In this paper we present a comprehensive discussion of requirements as well as our solutions for user intervention in self-adaptive applications.