Quality evaluation for Model-Driven Web Engineering methodologies

Context: There are lots of approaches or methodologies in the Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) context to develop Web Applications without reaching a consensus on the use of standards and scarcity of both, practical experience and tool support. Objective: Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) methodologies are constantly evolving. Moreover, Quality is a very important factor to identify within a methodology as it defines processes, techniques and artifacts to develop Web Applications. For this reason, when analyzing a methodology, it is not only necessary to evaluate quality, but also to find out how to improve it. The main goal of this paper is to develop a set of Quality Characteristics and Sub-Characteristics for MDWE approaches based on ISO/IEC standards. Method: From the software products context, some widely standards proposed, such as ISO/IEC 9126 or ISO/IEC 25000, suggest a Quality Model for software products, although up to now, there are no standard methods to assess quality on MDWE methodologies. Such methodologies can be organized into Properties, thus, a methodology has artifacts, processes and techniques. Then, each item is evaluated through a set of appropriate Quality Characteristics, depending on its nature. This paper proposes to evaluate a methodology as a product itself. Results: This paper recommends a set of Quality Characteristics and Sub-Characteristics based on these standards in order to evaluate MDWE methodologies quality. Additionally, it defines an agile way to relate these Quality Sub-Characteristics to Properties with the sole purpose of not only analyzing, but also assessing and improving MDWE methodologies. Conclusions: The application of these Quality Characteristics and Sub-Characteristics could promote efficiency in methodologies since this kind of assessment enhances both the understanding of strengths and weaknesses of approaches. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.