A Quality Model for Mashup Components

Through web mashups, web designers with even little programming skills have the opportunity to develop advanced applications by leveraging components accessible over the Web and offered by a multitude of service providers. So far, however, component selection has been merely based on functional requirements only, without considering the quality of the components and that of the final mashup. The quality in this context results from different factors, such as the software API, the contents, and the user interface. In the literature, quality criteria for the different aspects have been proposed and analyzed, but the adaptability and dynamicity that characterize the mashup ecosystem require a separate and focused analysis. In this paper, we analyze the quality properties of mashup components (APIs), the building blocks of any mashup application, and define a quality model, which we claim represents a valuable instrument in the hands of both component developers and mashup composers.