A Practical Example for Model-Driven Web Requirements

The number of approaches for Web environments has grown very fast in the last years: HDM, OOHDM, and WSDM were among the first, and now a large number can be found in the literature. With the definition of MDA (Model- Driven Architecture) and the acceptance of MDE (Model-Driven Engineering) techniques in this environment, some groups are working in the use of metamodels and transformations to make their approaches more powerful. UWE (UMLBased Web Engineering) or OOWS (Object-Oriented Web Solutions) are only some examples. However, there are few real experiences with Web Engineering in the enterprise environment, and very few real applications of metamodels and MDE techniques. In this chapter the practical experience of a Web Engineering approach, NDT, in a big project developed in Andalusia is presented. Besides, it shows the usability of metamodels in real environments

AO-WAD: a proposal for accessible design within web engineering approaches

Mature Web Engineering (WE) approaches provide good resources for developing Web 2.0 applications. The state-of-the-art shows that many of these approaches have evolved for providing support to different issues during the development process of these kind of applications, as business-to-business process modeling, context-awareness, RIAs and live-regions or quality factors for improving users’ experience. Focusing on Accessibility, having full support usually means being tightly coupled to host process and models, which prevents conveying this support to other WE approaches. In this paper we introduce our proposal, called Aspect-Oriented Web Accessibility Design (AO-WAD), and generalize its use within WE approaches to provide Accessibility support applying Aspect-Orientation techniques. We embed AO-WAD into OOHDM and UWE methods to propitiate an ease understanding through a motivating example.Eje: Workshop Ingeniería de software (WIS)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Concern-sensitive navigation: Improving navigation in web software through separation of concerns

Traditionally, the use of good techniques to improve software modularity, such as advanced separation of concerns, has no impact in the user experience, for example while navigating Web software. While the intent of these techniques is to simplify evolution and maintenance, navigation design quality is often seen as an unrelated concern. In this paper we present a novel approach for improving navigation in Web applications by using some of the core application's concerns (called navigational concerns) to derive their navigational structure. Using some realistic examples we show that, by carefully using these concerns, we can improve the user experience. Some implementation issues are discussed and a thorough comparison with related ideas in the Web Engineering field is presented.Publicado en Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, vol. 5074).Facultad de Informátic

25 Years of Model-Driven Web Engineering : What we achieved, what is missing

Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) approaches aim to improve the Web applications development process by focusing on modeling instead of coding, and deriving the running application by transformations from conceptual models to code. The emergence of the Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) has been an important milestone in the evolution of Web modeling languages, indicating not only the maturity of the field but also a final convergence of languages. In this paper we explain the evolution of modeling and design approaches since the early years (the 90’s) detailing the forces which drove that evolution and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of some of those approaches. A brief presentation of IFML is accompanied with a thorough analysis of the most important achievements of the MDWE community as well as the problems and obstacles that hinder the dissemination of model-driven techniques in the Web engineering field.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzada (LIFIA

An investigation of web-based hypermedia design support: methods and tools

Since the Internet networking was first established, the World Wide Web (or WWW) provides a new opportunity to deliver information and to communicate with others. Therefore, many organisations and industries have joined this exciting technology to take advantage of the Web. In recent years, the opportunity has arisen for other tasks to be carried out on the Web apart from delivering information. As the Web applications and documents have become larger and more complex, they have experienced many design and development problems which often lead to very high maintenance cost. To improve the quality of Websites and the structure of information, the designers need structured design methods, guidelines, and tools to assist their work. Some researchers have proposed hypermedia design methods and guidelines, which contain development cycle with formal design techniques to assist the construction of Web page designs. To overcome the design and development problems, this research is carried out by surveying currently available design methods. It shows the ways to apply these methods for developing structured Web sites. The results of this research led to identifying the design stages involved in developing Web sites using hypermedia methods. It also presents a CASE tool to provide a development environment for producing Web pages based on hypermedia design stages. This encourages Web designers to apply structured hypermedia design methods to improve the quality of design and to reduce the maintenance cost. The thesis is relevant for end-users, Web designers from organisations, institutes, and institutes for those who want to apply structured hypermedia design methods for producing their Web documents

AO-WAD: a proposal for accessible design within web engineering approaches

Mature Web Engineering (WE) approaches provide good resources for developing Web 2.0 applications. The state-of-the-art shows that many of these approaches have evolved for providing support to different issues during the development process of these kind of applications, as business-to-business process modeling, context-awareness, RIAs and live-regions or quality factors for improving users’ experience. Focusing on Accessibility, having full support usually means being tightly coupled to host process and models, which prevents conveying this support to other WE approaches. In this paper we introduce our proposal, called Aspect-Oriented Web Accessibility Design (AO-WAD), and generalize its use within WE approaches to provide Accessibility support applying Aspect-Orientation techniques. We embed AO-WAD into OOHDM and UWE methods to propitiate an ease understanding through a motivating example.Eje: Workshop Ingeniería de software (WIS)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Concern-sensitive navigation: Improving navigation in web software through separation of concerns

Traditionally, the use of good techniques to improve software modularity, such as advanced separation of concerns, has no impact in the user experience, for example while navigating Web software. While the intent of these techniques is to simplify evolution and maintenance, navigation design quality is often seen as an unrelated concern. In this paper we present a novel approach for improving navigation in Web applications by using some of the core application's concerns (called navigational concerns) to derive their navigational structure. Using some realistic examples we show that, by carefully using these concerns, we can improve the user experience. Some implementation issues are discussed and a thorough comparison with related ideas in the Web Engineering field is presented.Publicado en Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, vol. 5074).Facultad de Informátic

An Analysis of Model-Driven Web Engineering Methodologies

In the late 1990’s there was substantial activity within the “Web engineering” research community and a multitude of new Web approaches were proposed. However, numerous studies have revealed major gaps in these approaches, including coverage and interoperability. In order to address these gaps, the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) paradigm offers a new approach which has been demonstrated to achieve good results within applied research environments. This paper presents an analysis of a selection of Web development methodologies that are using the MDE paradigm in their development process and assesses whether MDE can provide an effective solution to address the aforementioned problems. This paper presents a critical review of previous studies of classical Web methodologies and makes a case for the potential of the MDWE paradigm as a means of addressing long-standing problems of Web development, for both research and enterprise. A selection of the main MDWE development approaches are analyzed and compared in accordance with criteria derived from the literature. The paper concludes that this new trend opens an interesting new way to develop Web systems within practical projects and argues that some classical gaps can be improved with MDWE.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2010-12312-EJunta de Andalucía TIC-578

Engineering Concern-Sensitive Navigation Structures: Concepts, Tools and Examples

Improving navigability in Web applications is a serious challenge for developers as this quality feature is essential for applications success. In this paper we present the concept of concern-sensitive navigation, a useful conceptual tool to improve navigation by profiting from the nature of application’s concerns. Concern sensitive navigation allows enriching Web pages with information, services or links related with the context in which pages are accessed.We show how our ideas are applied during the development process (e.g. by applying wise design strategies for separation of concerns) and can also be used by final users while adapting an application (e.g. by modding). Some examples of Web 2.0 sites are used to illustrate this last possibility. We also compare our research with other similar approaches such as the construction of adaptive Web applications.Facultad de InformáticaLaboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzada (LIFIA