A Situational Approach for Web Applications Design

The paper introduces a situational approach for Web applications design. We, first, define development situations and identify their specific characteristics through situational factors in projects. Using these situational factors, the most appropriate design process-model is selected. A meta-modeling technique is proposed that integrates the Map formalism for modeling existing design process-models. Based on COMET meta-model we have redefined most proven existing web applications development methods into method components that we have stored in a components base to be selected. Finally, a new method of useful method fragments is assembled. The approach provides three types of guidance: (1) guidance in the selection of the most appropriate design process-model, (2) guidance in the selection of the most appropriate method components and (3) guidance in the application of selected method components. The method developed was validated in a case study and proposed tool was validated empirically.