One of the core responsibilities of Service Engineering is to improve upon our set of traditionally “systems-oriented” methodologies (e.g., specification, modeling, verification, etc.) throughout the service-oriented architecture (SOA) project lifecycle. However, in many cases, UI design, an important element of systems-oriented methodologies, is eliminated from a development role or relegated to a minor, unempowered review status during SOA project development lifecycles.
There are multiple drivers within a SOA environment that contribute to this reduction of focus on UI design. They include the reusable nature of SOA components, the dilution of UI design responsibility in SOA projects, and attempts to minimize development costs. These factors often drive SOA projects toward common risk areas, including misalignment with business processes and application inconsistency.
Methods for integrating UI into Service Engineering as well as the SOA lifecycle, and linking UI to SOA modeling, assembly, deployment and management phases is described. The benefits of this integration are then explained.