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The Pro‘s and Con‘s of Employing the Unified Process for Web-Based Applications. Renate Motschnig University of Vienna Department of Computer Science and Business Informatics. Research Goals and Interests. Develop a process model for the effective development of high-quality web-applications
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The Pro‘s and Con‘s of Employing the Unified Process for Web-Based Applications Renate Motschnig University of Vienna Department of Computer Science and Business Informatics
Research Goals and Interests • Develop a process model for the effective development of high-quality web-applications • Primary process-model requirements: • Provide guidance yet sufficient room for individual solutions • Provide tool support • Respect special features of Web-applications
Is the Unified Process qualified • …from the point of view of our experience… • Case Study – UniKid (http://www.univie.ac.at/unikid) • Social Web-application • … as source for examples • Other case studies
Overview • IS the UP helpful in developing web-applications? • Special features of web-applications • Brief survey of Unified Process • Which features are helpful? • What is missing? • Conclusions • Further work
Web-Application • A web-application is a web-system (web-site) that allows its users to execute business logic with a web-browser. (Conallen, 1999).… User input affects the state of the “business“… • A web-application provides a web-interface to an information- or knowledge management system. (Motschnig)
Web-Application - Characteristics • Rich content, structure essential • Navigation is essential • Design for maintenance and change • Often: • Very diverse user profiles • integration of legacy systems • Interfaces • Peak interaction • …
Unified Process • Generic Process Template • Needs to be customized and instantiated • Characteristics: • Iterative and incremental • Architecture-centric • Use-Case Driven • Language (UML) integration and tool support
Use-Cases Inception
Complement to the Deliverables of the Inception Phase for Web-Applications
Complements to Deliverables of the Elaboration Phase for Web-Applications
Construction Phase • Basically refinement and implementation of DB and interfaces • 2 increments: • Use - cases for user view • Use – cases for editor view
Testing • Use-Case driven • Detailed specification of use-cases including all alternative scenarios proved very worthwhile • Many “errors“ and inconsistencies found • Navigation path driven – for content issues
Customization of process template Tool and UML Thoughtful suggestion of deliverables per phase, UML diagrams (Use-Case, Class,..) Iterative and incremental proceeding Management workflow: risk reduction, planning aspects initial and final business case UP features found helpful:
The UP does not support: • Graphic-layout considerations • Content issues like acquisition,intuitive naming, structure, design decisions • Navigation design • Interaction design (good tools available) • INTEGRATION of graphic, content and software techical issues within process • They are highly interdependent, need coordination
What needs to be added? Web-Applikation Software aspects Graphic-layout Content Missing: Acquisition Structuring Interlinking Navigation Integration Maintenance • O.K. with specialization: • Special NFR • Usability • Design for change • Performance, … • Special architecture Missing: Page structure Look and feel Integration with content and user-interaction …and a sensible integration of these workflows!!!
Conclusions • UP: highly valuable process template • Supporting: • useful set of deliverables, incremental process • Language – process – tool integration • Management issues, risk reduction • For full support, the UP needs to be complemented, in particular wrt. • Content and Graphics workflow • Navigation design (also diagramming technique required) • Integration of these workflows into the process
Related and Further Work • Content structuring concepts • Organize complexity • Navigation design with templates • Role of the web in knowledge construction, cooperative learning, organizational learning – as a complement to face-to-face meetings. • … in order to use New Media to improve communication and problem-solving