HOFM 2016 - International Workshop on Human-Oriented Formal Methods: From Readability to Automation

While designing and applying formal methods, computer scientists have dominantly focused on two factors, only: firstly, the method must be precise and sound and secondly, it must be mathematically concise and aesthetic. Other important characteristics such as simplicity or learnability are ignored too often. These nonfunctional properties, however, are key attributes of usability and user satisfaction. If usability is compromised, methods are not fit for the purpose of documenting, reproducing and communicating key design and realization decisions, or analysis results. For these reasons, many engineers and practitioners largely reject formal methods and formal specification languages as “too hard to understand and use in practice” while admitting that they are powerful and precise. Practitioners across numerous domains are increasingly interested in formal domain-specific modelling, simulation and validation. While there are many applications of formal methods to analyze human-machine interaction and to construct user interfaces, the field of application of human factors to the analysis and to the optimization of formal methods area is almost unexplored. This workshop aims to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners from academia and industry to baseline the state of the art in this increasingly important domain.
Organizers:
Heinz Schmidt (RMIT University, Australia)
Maria Spichkova (RMIT University, Australia)