From requirements to web applications in an agile model-driven approach

Abstract

Web applications are hard to build not only because of technical reasons but also because they involve many different kinds of stakeholders. Involving customers in the development process is a must, not only while eliciting requirements but also considering that requirements change fast and they must be validated continuously. However, while model-driven approaches represent a step forward to reduce development time and work at a higher level of abstraction, most of them practically ignore stakeholders' involvement. Agile approaches tend to solve this problem, though they generally focus on programming rather than modeling. In this paper we present an extension to an approach that combines the best of both worlds, allowing a formal and high-level design style with constant involvement of customers, mainly in the definition of navigation, interaction and interface features. We extended it by adding transformation features that allow mapping requirement models into content and navigation ones. We provide a proof of concept in the context of the WebML design method and an empiric validation of the approach's advantages.