Context-aware functionalities are functionalities that consider the context to produce a certain system behavior, typically an adaptation or recommendation. As contextual elements such as time, location, weather, user activity, device characteristics, network status, and countless others are becoming increasingly more accessible, the potential for adding context awareness to applications is enormous. Identifying novel, unexpected, and even delightful context-aware functionalities in practice can be challenging, though: What context information is relevant for a given user task? How can contextual elements be combined? What if there is a large number of contextual elements? Context modeling has been described in the literature as an essential aspect in the elicitation of context-aware functionalities; however, reports on the state of the practice are rare. In this study, we conducted a survey with industrial practitioners, mostly experienced professionals from large enterprises, to investigate how context models and context-modeling activities have been used to support the elicitation of context-aware functionalities. The results indicate a gap between research and industry: Context models are rarely used in practice, and context-modeling activities such as analysis of relevance and especially analysis of combinations of contextual elements have been overlooked due to their high complexity, despite practitioners recognizing their importance.

A context-sensitive groupware uses information about a group and its participants' context in order to provide useful information and services to improve group work. A relevant issue when designing Context-Sensitive Systems (CSS) is how to represent contextual information and the system's behavior. This paper presents a Context Metamodel and shows preliminary experiments in two context-sensitive groupware performed to illustrate its usage and potential in designing CSS. The metamodel offers integrated support for modeling structural and behavioral aspects involved in context management and usage.

Context-Sensitive Systems (CSS) demand that designers consider new aspects and challenges in comparison to traditional applications. In a preliminary experiment, we observed that developers have difficulties when including the concept of context in their applications. This paper presents a CSS Design Process, which details the main activities for context specification and the design of CSS and provides a systematic way to execute these tasks. Two studies were conducted to evaluate the process usage: a detailed execution of each defined activity on the design of a context-sensitive expert recommender system; and an evaluation of the process usage by distinct designers on their CSS projects. These studies showed a good acceptance of our proposal and indicated the feasibility of using the process on real projects.