User model-driven architecture for information retrieval in construction project management

Numerous software systems are designed to facilitate information retrieval and communication among people in the construction industry. It is arguable that user experiences and preferences are given enough consideration in a lot of them. To design a system serving the information retrieval needs of the construction industry, designers must determine the information that construction personnel need to retrieve from various sources, and in what kinds of formats it has to be displayed. The next problem is how to formalize the user model for a given class of users (such as vice president, project manager, or estimator) to direct information retrieval. Detailed case studies were used to specify and formalize user model(s) for construction personnel. The goal of this research is to improve the level of satisfactory results obtained from a conventional or advanced information retrieval (IR) system by modeling the user's information retrieval approach and leveraging the user model into structured knowledge. The users' needs will be analyzed and modeled by the use-case modeling method, and then the relationships in the use case will be used to address the IR system with a more relevant request. The user model proposed in this research is based on the implementation of user research in software development. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is implemented to build up a formal user model to generate a fast and smooth transition from the user needs to the software products. Furthermore, the Java object-oriented language is used to build up a configurable navigator pattern to retrieve information. Coding and system programming for information retrieval can be achieved based on these specifications. Five validation cases were designed to test the UMDA system from the aspects of user involvement and satisfaction, usability, sensitivity, search scope, and information retrieval performance. The validation process demonstrated that the UMDA system provides, in all the considered cases, the needed representations that are usable and that it supports effective data access and data collection of project management information. It also demonstrated that the interaction style of the UMDA system allows in many cases for efficient user interaction.