Schwinger1

• Document Centric Web Sites: Static HTML pages manually updated, best for simple content like homepages.

• Interactive Web Applications: Basic interactivity using forms and CGI, generating pages based on user input.

• Transactional Web Applications: Enable user-driven data modifications backed by databases (e.g., shopping, banking).

• Workflow-based Web Applications: Manage structured workflows across users or organizations using web services.

• Collaborative Web Applications: Focus on shared content creation and communication (e.g., wikis, forums).

• Portal-oriented Web Applications: Aggregate access to various services and systems through a unified interface.

• Ubiquitous Web Applications: Adapt to any device or context to provide customized, mobile-friendly experiences.

• Knowledge-based Web Applications: Use semantic technologies to make web content machine-readable and intelligent.

• Social Web Applications: Centered around identity, interaction, and user-generated content in social networks.

Summary sentence:

Web applications range from static document-based pages to highly interactive, collaborative, and intelligent platforms, each designed to meet different levels of user interaction, data integration, and adaptability.

A Web application is a software system based on

technologies and standards of the World Wide Web

Consortium (W3C) that provides Web specific resources

such as content and services through a Web browser.

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In general:

• Product-related characteristics describe the essential building blocks of a web application—content, navigation, and presentation—each with both static and dynamic aspects.

• Three main components:

  • Content (information)

  • Hypertext (navigation)

  • Presentation (user interface)

• Content

  • Core asset: needs to be generated, structured, and maintained with high quality

  • Comes in various formats (text, images, video, etc.)

  • Requires usability and accuracy

  • Developers must act as authors, not just coders

• Hypertext

  • Enables free navigation through content (nodes and links)

  • Challenges: non-linearity, disorientation, and cognitive overload

  • Solutions: sitemaps, purposeful links, and repeating patterns

• Presentation

  • Must support esthetics (e.g. look & feel, fashion trends)

  • Should enable self-explanation: easy to use without documentation

  • Consistent navigation and interaction are key

  
  

• Reflect how, when, where, and by whom web apps are used

• Usage is highly heterogeneous (users, devices, time, location)

• Require continuous adaptation across content, navigation, and UI

• Social context includes:

  • Spontaneity: Users join/leave freely; cannot be expected to stay loyal

  • Multiculturalism: Diverse user abilities, knowledge, and preferences

  • Often an anonymous user base; hard to define representative groups

• Technical context:

  • Must handle diverse devices, browsers, and network conditions

  • Account for bandwidth, connection reliability, and platform-specific configurations

• Natural context:

  • Varies by place (e.g., region, culture) and time (e.g., 24/7 availability)

  • Includes location-dependent services and heightened security demands

  • Requires instant usability and system stability across environments

• Multidisciplinarity: Teams require diverse expertise (IT, design, databases, etc.) across fields like publishing, marketing, and technology.

• Young Average Age: Developers are typically younger, more experimental, and tech-savvy.

• Community Development: Open-source involvement and collaboration with external developers are key trends.

• Flexible Development Process: Web apps often lack rigid project plans, enabling iterative and adaptive workflows.

• Parallelism: Development of components and phases often runs in parallel to meet fast delivery needs.

• Technical Infrastructure:

  • Inhomogeneity across servers, browsers, and frameworks

  • Immature ecosystems due to fast-paced innovation (frequent bugs, time pressure)

• Integration Challenges:

  • Internal: Legacy system compatibility

  • External: High variability and autonomy of data sources

  • Heterogeneity exists on multiple levels (data, schema, model)

Web applications evolve continuously due to changing requirements, competitive pressure, and rapid innovation — leading to volatile demands, short development cycles, and a constant need for fast, lean, and adaptive processes.

Web Engineering is the application of systematic, disciplined, and quantifiable approaches (concepts, methods, techniques, tools) to costeffective requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, operation, and maintenance of high-quality Web applications.

▪ Clearly defined goals and requirements

▪ Systematic development of a Web application in phases

▪ Careful planning of these phases

▪ Continuous audit of the entire development process

Web Engineering differs due to the lack of a long tradition in complex web apps, the unique nature of hypertext/hypermedia, and a distinct development culture — thus, conventional Software Engineering methods cannot be applied directly.

Levels - Presentation, Hypertext, Content

Feature - Behavior, Structure

Phases - Analysis, Design, Implementation