A Methodology for Evaluating the Personalization Conceptual Schema of a Web Application

While the market needs evolve rapidly, personalization has assumed an enormous industrial impact, which has caused a “Cambrian explosion” of technologies, claiming support to the personalization process. Deploying a methodology for the design and development of a Web application enhances effectiveness, but does not guarantee optimization in the design process, mainly due to the fact that a small number of extreme designers/programmers exist. The goal of this paper is to argue the need to approach personalization aspects from the very beginning in the Web application’s development cycle. Since personalization is a key issue in the application’s success, it is important that it should be dealt through a design view, rather than only an implementation view. In this paper, we will provide a methodology in order to evaluate the conceptual schema of an application, by means of the personalization features incorporated in the application model. The aim is to capture cases in which different ways are used to obtain the same personalization effect. We introduce the notion of model clones as partial conceptual schemas that are repeated within a broader application model. We define metrics to automate the detection and categorization of candidate model clones in order to facilitate potential model refactoring. Finally, we discuss possible model refactoring procedures with respect to personalization enhancements and detection of personalization defects.