Web Modeling Language (WebML): a modeling language for designing Web sites

Designing and maintaining Web applications is one of the major challenges f or the software industry of the year 2000. In this paper we present Web Mod eling Language (WebML), a notation for specifying complex Web sites at the conceptual level. WebML enables the high-level description of a Web site un der distinct orthogonal dimensions: its data content (structural model), th e pages that compose it (composition model), the topology of links between pages (navigation model), the layout and graphic requirements for page rend ering (presentation model), and the customization features for one-to-one c ontent delivery (personalization model). All the concepts of WebML are asso ciated with a graphic notation and a textual XML syntax. WebML specificatio ns are independent of both the client-side language used for delivering the application to users, and of the server-side platform used to bind data to pages, but they can be effectively used to produce a site implementation i n a specific technological setting. WebML guarantees a model-driven approac h to Web site development, which is a key factor for defining a novel gener ation of CASE tools for the construction of complex sites, supporting advan ced features like multi-device access, personalization, and evolution manag ement. The WebML language and its accompanying design method are fully impl emented in a pre-competitive Web design tool suite, called ToriiSoft. (C) 2 000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.