Abstract
Advances in wireless communication and handheld computers make it realistic to envisage that in the near future people will always carry with them small personal computing devices providing wireless access to a large set of information and communication services, and assisting them in whatever they have to do, also when they move around. In a mobile setting, the environment for the provided services varies influencing service quality properties and user needs. To retain usability, usefulness, and reliability under such circumstances, systems should adapt to the changing environments. This poses a challenge for system developers as existing software development methodology and middleware are not designed and not capable to support dynamic adaptivity. The presentation will introduce an approach to the development of self-adapting systems. It will also discuss the service user perspective: how do the users behave in a mobile setting and what do they expect?