Web Forms and XML Processing: Some Quality Factors of Process and Product

"The web is bad; really bad."--observed Jakob Nielsen three years ago about The Web Usage Paradox [1]. The true paradox today is that science and technology institutions have bad sites! Programrnes devoted to the information socioty itself have bad sites!! Hopefully this international conference will make a difference. At least show Nielsen and myself are not just fools on the hill" and, hopefully, help management make wiser decisions regarding web development strategies and, correlatively, better technical staff selection. The current paper contributes to this goal by exposing a method for the development of complex web services which embodies a number of quality assurance items and has passed the test of real web service deployment, featuring user authentication, multiple forms, recorded data, and automated page creation. The method and the case are described with incursions into selected technical details, Quality factors are explicitly or implicitly associated with each described item. 1. Web QuaKty Mauifesto The web is bad; really bad. [1] And it is getting worse. Already three years have passed since web usage specialist Jakob Nielsens article [I] has appeared, and still his observations are right on the mark: "90% of all commercial websites are overly difficult to use due to b/oated page design that takes forever to download, internally focused design that hypes products without giving real info, obscure site structures, Lack of navigation support, narrative writing style optimised for print, not for the way users read online, etc." ([I] abridged, original emphasis maintained). In the current paper I add a couple of items to this list. Why is it even worse, today? Well, for one, institutional sites are bad. In fact, the true paradox today is that scz.ence and technology institutions have bad sites! Research prograrnrnes devoted to the information society itself have bad sites!! The 2000 Olympics site was bad. Oracle's site is bad. I submit a Law of Inverse Quality: the greater the institution, worse the site. I hope this international conference-in particular panel PNI.2 entitled Qualidade nos Sistemas de InformaVdo da Administrado PAbIica.. o Inlc!o duma Cruda (Qualz'ry in Public Administration Information Sysrems.. the Start of a Quest), in regard to institutional sites--win make a difference. At least it will show Nielsen and myself are not simply fools on the hill"not anymore. And, hopefully, it will help educated management make wiser decisions regarding web development strategies-and, correlatively, better technical staff selection. The current paper contributes to this honourable goal by exposing a method for the development of complex web services which embodies a number of quality assurance items and has passed the test of real service case deployment. Is the Web really worse today, rather than three years ago? Yes, definitely. Here is a recent (2000) observation from the same author of [1]: "If you are going to go and buy something on a new website, you will fail. If you go to a new website, you will not be able to use it. (http://www.wired.com/newsibusiness/O,1367,40155,00 ,html) Web quality is a twofold problem: technical and social. Technical A veritable plethora of techniques and methods exists today to develop web services. Judging from the results, most of them are bad. The current paper presents a method that emphasises some quality factors of process and product. These factors are explicitly or implicitly associated with each described technical item. Bottom line: it is a good method. It is proven. The rest of this paper will deal with the technical aspect only. Social. The social problem is to convince people to use good methods and techniques. To be quality-aware. People like Jakob Nielsen [I] is trying to pass the message for some years now. The message is simple: User: demand web quality Web service provider, z My research is supported by the FundaVao para a Cincia e Tecnologia, vd~ Acknowledgements. provz"de quaLz.ty (or eLse dz.e). But seemingly the word is not getting through. Users are not demanding. Perhaps they simply do not know the Web could be much better. Perhaps they simply do not want to: one way for a site to be better is to be simpler; perhaps most users prefer complicated, slow sites. This social aspect is not addressed furd1er in the current paper. 2. Qullity Faaors Overview HTTP, CGI are the GOTOs of the 1990s. [21 We present a method for the development of complex web services. The method was tested with a service case featuri02: . user authentication . multiple forms . recorded data . automated page creation The method emphasises quality at two stages: development and execution (meaning runtime execution of the service). It does this by scoring high on quality factors of process and product respectively; mostly of product, but high scores here are justified by process factors implicit in the method, as illustrated in Table I . The product also scores high on eciency, usability, portability, and interoperabz.Iz.ty. It scores less on testabz.Ltly (test data must be prepared for each case, and it is not operationalised), and incegn`ty (no access control tool). These scores and their justification are further supported by the items detailed in the rest of the paper. The method comprises selected and created "open source" software tools and components: package CGI by David Wheeler (modified version included in [3]), package XML_Parser by the author {3], and GNAT by GNU, NYU and ACT (vd. adapower.com). We use the word safety as a synonym of reLiability, and we use the words method and safety in a wide sense, viz. with method ranging from architecture to coding, and safety including effectiveness and efficiency both in development (cost safety) and execution. In this paper the method is presented with examples from the real development case, and with incursions into the detail of selected aspects. The method is continually evolving, due to both external technological change and internal planned increments. Some of these planned increments are also exposed in this paper, as a means of obtaining feedback from the software engineering community. This trait in particular puts the method on the top level of the CMM (Capability Maturity Model, vd. httfi://www.sei.cmu.edu). Other well known software process references associated with the current method are vanilla frameworks, extreme programming, futurisz programmz"ng (vd. Intemet). The precise form of these associations is left implicit in the paper.