Design Methodology for Rich Web-based Applications

Rich web-based applications (RiWAs), like Facebook or Google apps, improve user experience over regular web applications with rich GUIs similar to desktop applications and the advanced delta-communication model (DC) to communicate faster with the server-side and update the current GUI without loading a new one. The RiWAs development tools, like libraries and frameworks, have evolved over the last two decades; however, conceptual artefacts like design patterns and design methods/methodologies have not evolved to cater to the RiWAs’ specificity.

The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is the de facto standard General-Purpose Modelling Language (GPML). There are UML-based or UML-like designing languages available, like Arc42, SAP’s TAM and OOA/OOM, ArchiMate, and SysML, where some, like the C4 model, UWE, IFML, and IAML are explicitly focusing on web applications. These available languages do not address modelling all the aspects of RiWAs and exclude features like distribution of the business logic and the Application elements to the tiers and platforms, details of the processing components such as controllers, and communication granularity, including DC-related processing.

This conceptual research is scoped for browser-based 3-tier RiWAs and focuses more on structural designing, aligning with the Rich Web-based Applications Architectural style (RiWAArch style). Real-world use cases demonstrate the use and adoption of the introduced design methodology. The design methodology is evaluated by triangulating the results of formal methods: a self-evaluation utilising the use cases as proof of concept, a contextualised comparison, and domain experts’ evaluation.

The following are contributions of the research. A process for implementing a new design methodology is formulated, which can assist similar research. The study identifies the requirements for a Domain-Specific Modelling Language (DSML) for RiWAs and introduces a UML extension with new models, model-elements, and UML profiles. The new DSML introduces a new labelling format for the model-elements to include more details consistently to improve the designs’ usability. Rules and guidelines for using the new language in RiWAs design and development are also provided. Then, this research contributes a design methodology that discusses RiWAs’ design and engineering approaches based on the introduced DSML and also provides guidelines for integrating the RiWAs' design activities into an agile environment. The presented design methodology with the new DSML delivers a simple and adoptable solution (covering the aspects of comprehensiveness, learnability, readability/understandability, development support, and integrability) for the domain of RiWAs.