Keywords: Thing Description, Automatic Thing Generation, and Automatic validation, Web of Things, Internet of Things.
Abstract
The breakneck evolution of the Web of Things (WoT) has led to a burgeoning demand for reliable tools that facilitate the automatic generation and validation of Thing Descriptions (TD). However, emerging tools that generate or validate TD automatically have suffered from abounding limitations and constraints. In this paper, we propose and implement an automatic web-based Thing Description Generator and Validator (TDGV) application. TDGV automates and simplifies TDs generation while ensuring the compliance with the WoT standards. The application generates more accurate thing description results. In order to evaluate the usability of the TDGV, a Concurrent Think-aloud usability study was conducted with a sample of 150 developers. The study revealed positive feedback regarding the user interface and the TDGV usability. The study results highlight areas for enhancement, such as TDGV navigation. TDGV is a convenient and robust Thing Description Generator and Validator web application. It provides a valuable tool for users in the WoT domain, enabling them to automatically and easily generate and validate TDs.