Modelling Internet Applications

1
Modelling Internet Applications

• Preparation of Evaluation

2
Approaches

• (A) Oracle Developer Suite
• DB-based web applications
• http//www.oracle.com/lang/de/tools/index.html
• (B) Ruby on Rails
• (code-)DSL for web application (programming)
• http//www.rubyonrails.org/
• (C) Microsoft Visual Web Developer
• Data-driven web sites and web page design tools
• http//www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/
• (D) VisualWADE
• Object-oriented modelling method and tooling from
  Univ. Alicante
• http//gplsi.dlsi.ua.es/iwad/ooh_project/cawetool.
  htm http//www.visualwade.com/
• (E) beContent
• Approach an accompaning tool developed by teh
  University of L'Aquila fostering MDE
• http//www.becontent.org/page.php?id12id_menu13
  
• (F) OOWS
• Object-oriented approach developed by the Univ.
  Valencia, partly supported by the commercial
  Olinova Tool (licencing in progress)
• (G) Iron Speed Designer
• Generate Database and Reporting Web Apps for .NET

3
Reference Application

• a Tourism Information Web Application, like e.g.
  www.tiscover.at
• of course with reduced functionalitiy!
• browse the hotels within regions
• the list of hotels shall provide essential
  information, e.g., the hotels name and address
  from which the users may see the details of the
  hotels comprising additionally a picture, a short
  description, and a quick link for booking rooms
  if the user is logged-in
• Hotels offer services (e.g., spa, support of
  children.
• Administrators have a special interface to
  create, edit or delete hotels, regions, services,
  as well as bookings and users

4
Customization Scenarios

• The following customization scenarios should be
  realized as far as possible
• (1) Customized Services
• The list of hotels shall be filtered on basis of
  a user's service preferences.
• (2) Special Offers
• Users should enjoy special offers in terms of 2
  off the price for the next booking of a hotel in
  a region, if they have visited 10 pages of a
  specific region or have already booked hotels in
  that region three times
• (3) Administrator Links
• Only administrators shall be provided with "edit"
  links on the pages presenting a hotel's detail
• (4) Multi-Delivery
• In order to consider users equipped with small
  devices pictures and detailed descriptions shall
  not be shown and the list of hotels shall be
  presented in a guided tour style, if a limited
  device is used by the user.
• You may assume that the device type used by a
  user is stored within a user's information
• (5) Current Seasons Style
• Different styles shall be chosen during summer
  and winter, respectively. You may use any two
  style sheets

5
Evaluation CriteriaGeneral Criteria

• Type of Web Applications best suited for which
  type of web application, e.g. data-driven,
  ubiquitous, workflow
• Provided Models which models are supported
• Modelling Formalism / Specification formalism is
  used for specification (e.g. UML), own model /
  property?
• Uniform formalism does it employ a uniform
  formalism for all aspects, e.g., UML for content,
  HT, and presentation or does it employ different
  formalisms for content, HT, presentation?
• Unterstandability is the used modelling
  formalism / way of specifying easy to understand
  and communicate?
• Phases which phases of the development process
  are supported, e.g. requirements engineering,
  design? Does it allow to freely interate between
  the different phases / models without loosing
  information?
• Process Support does it forsee a process
  support, e.g., wizzards?
• User Group for whom is the approach / tools best
  suited, e.g., web designers, programmers, DB
  people?
• Development Teams ? does it allow working in
  parallel?
• Versioning does it allow to versions and
  configuration of the application?
• Different Views does it provide different views
  on the model, e.g., static view, behavioral view?
  
• Generalization / Abstraction does it allow to
  employ generalization and abstraction mechanisms
  to reuse design / models / specifications, e.g.,
  the admins view is a anonymous view with
  additional editing functionality?

6
Evaluation CriteriaContent

• External Services does it allow to incorporate
  external services, e.g., check credit card
  number?
• Workflow Support does it allow to define
  workflows and react on variations, e.g., credit
  card not valid?
• which phases of the development process are
  supported, e.g. requirements engineering
• Robustness allows it to deal with failures of
  services
• Legacy Integration does it allow for integration
  of existing data source does it allow to reverse
  engineer existing data sources (import existing
  DB schema)
• Non-Elephant DB does it forsee content in
  non-elephant DBs, e.g., logfiles, BLOBs?
• Volatile Requirements can it deal with volatile
  requirments without cluttering the exsting
  application?
• Data Types which data types are supported? Is
  multi-media content supported - which formats,
  e.g., .avi, .flash, streaming etc.?
• Quality does it allow to consider quality
  aspects, quality of service?
• Transaction Management does it allow for
  transactions, e.g. booking vaccations may require
  the successful booking of flight, hotel, car,
  sightseeing trips, and appropriate compensation
  strategies if one of the parts fails?
• Application Logic does it allow to specify a
  domain-dependent application logic?

7
Evaluation CriteriaHypertext

• Access Patterns which access patterns are
  available, e.g, guided tour, index guided tour,
  hierarchical, part-of structures, bread crumbs?
• Guidelines does it provide / enforce guidelines
  to prevent cognetive overload?
• Reocurring Access Paths does it provide to
  automaticall generate often used access paths,
  e.g., site map, search whole site,
  insert/update/delete-dialog?
• Reocurring Functionality does it provide
  reocurring functionality, e.g., blogging,
  calendar, feedback forms, RSS feeds, forgot
  password, drag and drop, etc.?
• Keeping Context does it allow to keep the
  context between browsing, searching and
  information retrival?
• Decoupling HT from Content does it allow
  multiple Hypertexts on the same content model?
  Does it provide for flexibility with respect to
  type and instance mapping?
• Link Types which different types of links are
  supported?
• Homepage/Langmarks does it allow to specify the
  homepage and landmarks?

8
Evaluation CriteriaPresentation

• Mapping does it allow to define the placing of
  nodes on a page?
• Graphical Elements does it allow to model
  graphical elements, e.g., footer, header, menue
• Alternative Layouts does it allow alternative
  layouts?
• Effects does it allow to specify effects on
  presentation elements?
• Events does it allow to react to user events,
  e.g., mouse over?
• Synchronisation does it allow to specify
  synchronisation of user elements, e.g., video and
  audio elements?
• Flexible Mapping is it possible to paginate the
  HT differnently, e.g., the navigation index to
  details can be put on a single page or mapped to
  two pages?

9
Evaluation CriteriaCustomization

• Physical Context does it provide
  concepts/automatic mechnisms for physical context
  information, e.g., user-agent string, GPS
  sensors?
• Logical Context does it allow to model logical
  context in a reusable way?
• Context Properties which context properties can
  be easily realized/regarded, e.g., user, network,
  device capabilities?
• Personalization does it forsee to personalize
  (for individual users, for user groups) content,
  navigation, presentation?
• Mutli-Delivery does it forsee to deliver the web
  application on various devices?
• Combined Context does it allow to model combined
  context (e.g. yuppies at afterwork in hype city)
  in a reusable way?
• Adaptive Hypermedia does it (easily) allow to
  change the navigation topology on basis of usage,
  e.g., changing order in a list?
• Generic Adaptation Operations does it provide
  for generic adaptation operations, e.g.,
  reduceSize, changeResolution, promoteNode, etc.?
• Static and Dynamic Customization does it provide
  for static and/or dynamic adaptation?
• Adaptation Subject what levels, model elements,
  concepts can be adapted?
• Adaptation Effect is it possible to delete,
  modify, introduce concepts?

10
Evaluation CriteriaCode Generation

• Completeness of Generation full generation of
  the web application / generation of parts /
  stubs?
• Target Platform which target plattforms are
  supported?
• Roundtrip Engineering does it allow for
  roundtrip / reverse engineering in case the
  developers need to write their own code?
• Testing does it allow to specify test cases /
  testing / test data generation7 validating the
  application?
• Rich Internet Applications does it allow to
  build richt internet applications does it
  require non-standard technology (e.g. IE bound)?
• Scalability does it allow to consider
  scalability (number of users, large number of
  unstructured data, number of accesses)

11
Evaluation CriteriaModel-Driven Engineering

• Standards does it employ the standards for
  Model-Driven Engineering, e.g., MOF, QVT?
• Metamodel does it have an explicit metamodel?
• Model Exchange does it provide for standardized
  model exchange, e.g., XMI?
• Platform Description Model does it employ a
  platform description model?

12
Criteria

• Plugins / Flash / Multimedia
• Visual Impression / Usability of the Web
  application to be
• Gui description language to be transformed into
  the actual HTML-presentation
• Layouting / pre-viewing
• Model-checking
• More patterns
• Multiplattform / which are the supported
  platforms
• Concepts for Hypertext (which units)
• Round-trip engineering
• Relationship between own code and generated code
  / keeping own code
• Graphical vs. wizzard / properties style
• offline behaviour / stored java script
• Support for Rich Internet Applications
• generic adaptation operations
• which customization scenarios can be realized
• how does it get the physical context
• Datasources only DB or also web services
• predefined CRUD operations
• Nice notation (Readability)