Metodologias

A Comparative Study of Methods for Hypermedia Development*
Nora Koch1
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Institute of Computer Science Oettingenstr. 67 D-80538 München Tel. +49 89 2178 2151 Fax +49 89 2178 2152 kochn@informatik.uni-muenchen.de

Abstract
This paper presents a comparative study of the most relevant methodologies for hypermedia and Web development published in the last fewyears. Most of these methods focus on the design of hypermedia applications; only a few cover more aspects of the life cycle, such as requirements capture, implementation and/or testing. One common characteristic is the separation of the domain analysis from the specification of the navigation space structure as well as from the design of the user interface. A brief description of each of thesemethodologies is given as well as a set of comparisons. We compare the main concepts, the phases o steps of the model, CASE Tool support as well as the modelling technique, notation and graphical representation. A list of the most relevant characteristics of the Unified Process is given as well comparing it to hypermedia development methodologies.

Keywords
Hypermedia Development Methods,Hypermedia Systems, Hypermedia Design, Web applications, Unified Process.

1

Introduction

Hypermedia development is a new and still evolving discipline. We are at the beginning of a large process of learning how to develop large hypermedia applications. Hypermedia applications for the Web or CD-ROM are mostly developed ad hoc, evolving usually from small to large applications and becoming verysoon unmaintainable. Some guidelines or tools are beginning to appear assisting the hypermedia developer. But these current practices fail when used to develop large-scale applications for the same reasons as such a development fails in other areas of software development. These reasons are lack of planning and inappropriate techniques, processes and methodologies. The development of hypermediasystems differs from the developing process of traditional software in several dimensions. People with very different skills are involved in the process, such as authors, layout designers, programmers, multimedia experts, marketing specialists. The role of the users is augmented and makes it more difficult to capture the structure of the domain. The non-linearity of the hyperdocuments as well as thepossibility to connect easily to other hypermedia applications increments the complexity and risk of "lost in the hyperspace".

* 1

Technical Report 9905, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, November 1999.

also working at FAST e. V. (Research Institute for Applied Software Technology), Arabellastr. 17, D-81925 München, Germany, koch@fast.de.

A Comparative Study of Methods forHypermedia Development

Hypermedia development has to take into account aesthetic and cognitive aspects as well, that traditional software engineering environments do not support (Nanard and Nanard, 1995). It tends to be more fine grained, the process more incremental and iterative, and the maintenance phase plays a more important role in the life-cycle of hypermedia applications than in thelife-cycle of other systems. Hypermedia applications that are the results of ad hoc implementations tend to be confusing for the users and difficult to maintain for the authors. Thus, engineering of hypermedia applications is a critical factor playing an important role in maintenance of future hypermedia systems. In the last few years many development methods have been defined. They have similarities anddifferences. The purpose of this paper is to compare them, finding out what are the similarities and what the differences. These methods for the development of hypermedia systems propose a different number of steps and activities, some of them focus only on the design; others focus on the complete development of hypermedia applications. They prescribe different techniques and/or notations to be...