Separating the navigational aspect

The first step given to separate concepts in web environments has been to take apart presentation from data. This split has been gotten due to the appearance of the Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) and the application of style sheets. The new ideas from the advanced separation of concerns community and the new abstractions like aspects make us think this original division isn’t rich enough. There are important concepts of Internet applications that should be defined separately. If we look at new web design methodologies, we can realize that one of these aspects is navigation. Following the way started by XML, we propose the use of the XML Linking Language (XLink) as a first stage to obtain the separation of the navigational aspect

Using Aspect-orientation Techniques to Improve Reuse of Metamodels

Metamodelling is an activity that attracts attention of the research community dealing with the Model- Driven Development (MDD). To be reusable in different MDD approaches a metamodel should be unaware of being extended by another metamodel. This property of metamodel is called obliviousness. This paper shows that current techniques implementing metamodels do not maintain obliviousness when some elements of the extended metamodel and the elements of the original model have association relations. Three different approaches to reuse of metamodels are analyzed. One of the approaches uses traditional object-oriented techniques. Two other approaches use aspect-oriented techniques. The paper shows that the third approach, which considers relationships as first-class citizens at the implementation level by using relationship aspects, guarantees obliviousness of metamodels.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC 2003-369

Analysing the navigational aspect

The Internet and web applications have increased their popularity in the last few years. This boom has provoked the use of new approaches for web-based applications. These new methodologies try to address some new concerns which have appeared in this field and weren’t in traditional methodologies. One of these concerns is navigation. At the same time, it has been proved that there are some concerns that aren’t well treated with the traditional abstraction mechanisms ((functions, objects). They scatter by all the code of the program. This paper tries to join both approaches, crossing the gap between the design level proposed in the methodologies and the implementation level, using for it the proposed ideas in the area of the advanced separation of concerns

Sitemaps from a model driven perspective: A first step for bridging the gap between information architecture and navigation design

Researchers claim that there is a disconnection between information architecture and navigation design. One way of approaching these two fields is to share deliverables. However, it is difficult to change the minds of audiences to make them use deliverables they are not used to. Thus, we propose let audiences use those deliverables they are more comfortable with, and then transform one deliverable into another, as far as possible. To get this aim, firstly, we need to have a deep knowledge of deliverables, and secondly, a set of mappings have to be defined in order to translate the information the source deliverable is covering into the target deliverable. Our approach uses metamodelling as the technique to define the pieces that compose deliverables and their relationships, and model transformations for mapping deliverables. In this context, the paper focuses on one of the most widely used information architecture deliverables, sitemaps, and its main contributions are: (1) a sitemap metamodel, which define the minimum set of elements that can be used for specifying sitemaps; and, (2) a set of model to model transformations to obtain a XHTML skeleton of structural and utility navigationMinisterio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN-2007-67843-C06-03Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2007-6411

Towards Interactive Systems Usability Improvement through Simulation Modeling

Nowadays, usability has become an essential contribution to the success of interactive systems and is recognized as a quality attribute for software products. This paper proposes the use of dynamic simulation models for the improvement of interactive systems usability through the application of a User Centered Design (UCD) process and its integration into the software development process. The simulation model developed is used to experiment on the effect that different levels of usability have over the behavior of the UCD process in a specific kind of interactive systems such as web site application development.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) TIC 2003-369Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) TIC-2001-1143-C03-0

Aplicación del Modelado y Simulación de Sistemas Dinámicos al Proceso de Diseño Centrado en el Usuario

La usabilidad de los Sistemas Interactivos se reconoce ya como una componente fundamental del éxito de estos sistemas. Para garantizar la usabilidad, las organizaciones de desarrollo de software deben considerar la aplicación de procesos de Diseño Centrados en el Usuario (DCU). Sin embargo, existen inconvenientes que dificultan la aplicación de estos procesos por parte de las organizaciones de desarrollo de software. Las técnicas de modelado y simulación se han aplicado desde la década de los 90 para dar respuesta a distintas cuestiones relacionadas con el proceso de desarrollo de software. En este artículo, se presenta una primera aproximación a la aplicación del modelado y simulación al proceso de Diseño Centrado en el Usuario, con el objetivo de ayudar a la comprensión y visualización de las características específicas de este proceso de desarrollo, que posibiliten la mejora del mismo y como consecuencia un incremento de la usabilidad de los sistemas.CYCIT TIC 2003-369CYCIT TIC 2001- 1143-C03-0

Modelado y Simulación como herramienta para la mejora de la Usabilidad

Las técnicas de modelado y simulación se han aplicado desde la década de los 90 para dar respuesta a distintas cuestiones relacionadas con el proceso de desarrollo de software. Una de las principales ventajas del modelado y simulación es la posibilidad de predecir las consecuencias que podrían tener determinadas decisiones en el desarrollo de un proyecto software sin necesidad de asumir riesgos elevados. Este artículo pretende justificar que las técnicas de modelado y simulación, aplicadas ya con éxito al proceso software, pueden ser también herramientas valiosas para el proceso de desarrollo de interfaces de usuario, teniendo como objetivo final la mejora de la usabilidad. Para ilustrar la aplicación de estas técnicas se presenta el proceso de construcción de un modelo de simulación dinámico del proceso de Diseño Centrado en el Usuario.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC 2003-369Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC 2001-1143-C03-0

Towards an Approach for Applying Early Testing to Smart Contracts

Immutability -  the ability for a Blockchain (BC) Ledger to remain an unalterable, permanent and indelible history of transactions - is a feature that is highlighted as a key benefit of BC. This ability is very important when several companies work collaboratively to achieve common objectives. This collaboration is usually represented by using business process models. BC is considered as a suitable technology to reduce the complexity of designing these collaborative processes using Smart Contracts. This paper discusses how to combine Model-based Software Development, modelling techniques, such as use cases models and activity diagram models based on Unified Model Languages (UML) in order to simplify and improve the modelling, management and execution of collaborative business processes between multiple companies in the BC network. This paper includes the neccessity of using transformation protocols to obtain Smart Contract code. In addition, it presents systematic mechanisms to evaluate and validate Smart Contract, applying early testing techniques, before deploying the Smart Contract code in the BC network.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-R (POLOLAS

Methodologies to develop Web Information Systems and Comparative Analysis

New systems are currently being developed which have different aims from the systems developed some years ago. Current systems tend to be distributed, with huge storage needs and complex functional requirements. But these systems are also distributed via Internet so interface, information recovery, navigation and multimedia are all fundamental aspects. These new systems are known as Web Information Systems (WIS). The complexity of these systems and the fact that they are systems requiring constant maintenance due to the fact that they continually change to adapt to users’ new requirements means that they have to be developed using a standardized process. There is currently no standard methodology accepted by all the software engineering community. This paper presents the result of a comparative study analysing the different methodologies which are currently applicable to the development of a Web Information System