Realising end-user driven web application development using meta-design paradigm

Abstract

Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) need to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enhance their business processes to become competitive in the global economy. When an information system is introduced to an organisation it changes the original business environment thus changing the original requirements. This in turn will change the processes that are supported by the information system. Also when users get familiar with the system they ask for more functionality. This gives rise to a cycle of changes known as co-evolution. In addition, SMEs have budget constraints which make the problem associated with co-evolution worse. One solution to overcome this situation is to empower end-users to develop and maintain the information systems. Within the above context the work presented addresses the following research question: "How to support SME end-users to develop and / or maintain Web applications to support their business processes?" There are two main components to this question: What are the requirements of a suitable end-user development approach for SMEs and how to create the Web applications based on the requirements. The requirements of a suitable end-user development approach can be established by identifying the different types of Web applications required by SMEs, the capabilities of end-users in relation to developing and / or maintaining Web applications and how they conceptualise the Web applications. The literature review is conducted to discover different types of Web applications required by SMEs and to identify a suitable end-user development approach and tools that can support the development of these various types of Web applications. According to the literature survey, the main types of Web applications required by SMEs can be categorised as information centric Web applications (Simple Web sites which focus on effective presentation of unstructured information), data intensive Web applications (the focus is on efficient presentation and management of structured data such as product catalogue) and workflow intensive Web applications (The focus is on efficient automation of business processes such as an order processing system). The literature on end-user development shows that the existing end-user development approaches are focused on specific types of Web applications. The frameworks and tools in the Web development discipline mainly target experienced Web developers. Therefore a gap is identified as "there are limited end-user development approaches for developments of different types of Web applications which are required by SMEs to IT enable their businesses'". The capabilities of SMEs in relation to Web application development were identified based on a study conducted with a group of SMEs. This study first surveyed the SMEs experience and knowledge in relation to Web application development and their attitude towards end-user development. Then their capabilities relating to Web application development were studied in a hands-on session to develop a Web site. The second study is conducted with administrative staff members involved in development of a Web application. This study helps to establish the requirements of a suitable end-user development approach from the point of view of the end-user developers. This study on end-user development observed the different activities carried out by end-users. Then the end-user was interviewed to identify the issues and benefits of end-user development in the project. Following that, a set of requirements for the end-user development approach was derived based on the findings from these two studies and the related literature: 1) A need to support different types of Web applications required by SMEs; 2) A need to support the specification of Web applications at the conceptual level; 3) A need for a common data repository to store the data used in different applications within the organisation; 4) Providing a common login to all applications within the organisation; 5) Striping a balance between Do it Yourself (DIY) and a professional developer that allows end-users to do the activities they are capable of while getting help from a professional developer to do the difficult tasks. The conceptual aspects of different types of Web applications (information centric, data intensive and process intensive) were identified based on a literature survey of existing conceptual modelling approaches. This set of aspects was refined by modelling selected Web applications for each type of Web application. The aspects needed to specify different types of Web applications are: presentation, data, task, workflow, access control, navigation, and personalisation. Then the usage of these aspects in a set of end-user specifications was analysed. This study reveals that end-users only focus on some of these aspects such as data and process to specify the applications. Therefore, another requirement for the development approach was identified - a need to support development of Web applications with minimum aspects. A meta-design paradigm based on the meta-model of Web applications is proposed to support the identified requirements. A meta-model of Web applications is developed based on the patterns of different types of Web applications. A component based Web application development framework called CBEADS (Component based eApplication Development and Deployment Shell) was extended to support the meta-model based development approach. Web applications can be created by populating the values for the attributes of the meta-model which are related to the attributes of different aspects of the Web applications at the conceptual level. The meta-model is organised into three levels: shell level, application level, and function level. Aspects common to many web applications are modelled at the shell level. The data model and user model are stored and managed at the shell level. This supports the requirements of common data repository and the common login to all applications. The aspects common to a web application are modelled at the application level. The function specific aspects required to implement the functionality of the Web application are modelled at the function level. The metamodel has two properties called overriding and inheritance. Inheritance property allows developing Web applications with minimum aspects. The activities required to develop the Web applications in a framework supporting the meta-model are grouped into three levels based on the complexity of these tasks named routine level, logical level and programming level.These different levels together with the overriding property help to balance between DIY and a professional developer. The meta-design paradigm is practically evaluated with a group of users including SMEs and students. The studies establish strategies for the success of the meta-design paradigm such as characteristics of individuals, facilitation and infrastructure. The original contributions of this thesis enhance the field of end-user development by providing a new end-user development approach that can be used by business end-users to develop web applications. More importantly the major contributions of this research provide a practical approach that can be used particularly by SME end-users with little or no previous experience in web application development. Significant research contributions are made in the following four areas: 1) Establishing requirements for an end-user development approach suitable for business users. 2) Identifying a set of aspects required to model different types of Web applications at the conceptual level. 3) Developing a meta-design paradigm based on the meta-model of different types of Web applications 4) Developing the strategies for successful use of the meta-design paradigm.

Date of Award	2008
Original language	English