Web Site Development Methodologies - High Level Models and Methodologies for Information Systems - page 66

Howcroft and Carroll ( 2000 ) have observed that RRM is exceedingly complex,
which makes it less adaptable, as Web developers generally have little experience in
the IS

field, and this methodology relies heavily on IS principles and terminology.
Venable and Lim ( 2001 ) observe that the RMM is included in the category of
Web site development methodologies that use modi ed models based on traditional

IS or software development methodologies.

4.5 Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Methodology
(OOHDM)

The focus of a hypermedia application is information, and the principle that
information can be divided into smaller parts regardless of how it is presented or
stored. Schwabe and Rossi ( 1995a ) argue that the Object-oriented Hypermedia
Design Method (OOHDM) uses abstraction and composition mechanisms in an
object-oriented model, in order to allow for a concise description of complex
information items and permit the speci cation of complex navigation patterns and

interface transformations.
OOHDM is essentially based on Hypermedia Design Model (HDM), a method
that focuses on the notion of hypertext as the conjunction of entities and their
relationships, such as navigational paths. However, OOHDM expands HDM
toward the object-oriented paradigm, where design activities permit composition
mechanisms (for example, classi cation, aggregation, and inheritance hierarchies),

leading to abstraction and reuse by introducing several visual schemas to improve
the expressiveness of the model (Burner 2002 ). Contrary to HDM, OOHDM pre-
sents a clearly de

ned method for the development of hypermedia applications
(Gaedke and Graef 2000 ).
Under the OOHDM methodology, the hypermedia application is developed in a
four-stage process sustaining an incremental or prototype process model. Each
stage emphasizes a particular design concern, and an object-oriented model is
constructed. Classi cation, aggregation, and generalization/specialization are used

throughout the process to improve abstraction power and reuse opportunities
(Schwabe and Rossi 1995a ). The four stages are described in Table 4.1 .
In the conceptual design stage, a conceptual model of the application domain is
developed using well-known object-oriented modeling standards. As a result, a
class schema is produced, consisting of subsystems, classes, and relationships, with
multiple-valued attributes and explicitly indicated directions. The goal, at this point,
is to aggregate and summarize the domain semantics in the widest and most neutral
form possible, without particular concerns regarding users and tasks (Schwabe et al.
1999 ).
The second stage is navigational design, a description and visualization of the
navigational structure of the hypermedia application, based on numerous navigation
classes such as nodes, links, indexes, and guided tours. The multivalued attributes