WebML for OMG

Experiences and requirements for a User Interaction Modeling Language
Marco Brambilla @marcobrambi
Politecnico di Milano and WebRatio
Stefano Butti @stebutti
WebRatio
OMG Technical Meeting, ADTF, Salt Lake City, June 22nd, 2011

Agenda
2
WebML: Web Modeling Language
History
Language
Metamodel
Relation to other standards
Industrial Experience
WebRatio
Users
Projects
Requirements for a Web UI Language
Discussion
RFC or RFP
Consensus and partners

1. WebML

WebML: purpose
4
A visual modeling language (DSL) ...
Oriented to the high level design
Incorporating all the details that are needed for refined specification
... Effective and essential ...
Including only the concepts relevant to the domain
No overhead because of verbose notation or orthogonality
... For user interaction design ...
Page contents
Navigation paths and UI events
... Within web applications
Born bottom-up from the features of dynamic web applications

WebML: role and positioning
Process:
BPMN
User Interaction:
WebML
Contents:
ER, class, ..
Style:
CSS, ...
BPMN model
Backend:
SoaML, WSDL..
Services
5

The WebML notation: example
Two pages
Retrieval of session data (CurrentUser)
Review Page
Lists of (prefered) artists
Links to artist details
Albums Page
List of albums of selected artist
Checkbox and deletion of albums

WebML: content publishing units
7
A WebML unit is the atomic information publishing element
A “view” defined upon a container of objects:
The instances of an concept
Based on a complex selection condition (called selector)
A unit may need some input and produces some output
Input is required to compute the unit itself (params of the selector)
Output can be used to compute other unit(s)

WebML: Links
Source
Destination
Links in WebML have 3 purposes
Describe navigation paths
Transport parameters between units
Activate computation of units and execution of side effects
Normally, links are rendered as one or more anchors/buttons based on the dataset and semantics of the source unit
Various behaviours are allowed (automatic, asynchronous, transport ..)
Transportlinks: onlycarryparameters, no navigationnor side effects

WebML: CRUD operation units
9
Execution of CRUD operations
Simple failure/success model of operations
Success: green “OK link” is navigated
Failure: red “KO link” is navigated
Chains of operations can be defined
Control dictated by links
Basic control flow elements available (loop, switch)

WebML units: coverage
Content publishing
Data Index MultiData Entry Scroller Multichoice HierarchicalIndex
Session management Web Services
Login Logout Get Set Request-Response ….
CRUD Operations
Create Modify Delete Connect Disconnect
10

WebML foundation and extensibility
11
The language foundations
Basic set of units
Connection to a content model for data retrieval and management
Links for control and data flow
Page computation algorithms for execution semantics
The page content is automatically calculated also in case of complex topologies
Incoming links and dependencies among units are considered
The language is open
New units and operations can be specified
For implementing ad-hoc business logics

WebML metamodel
12
Language metamodel available
As UML diagrams (MagicDraw)
As ECORE (EMF) models written in Eclipse Modeling Tools
Excerpt / overview:

WebML metamodel
13

2. WebRatio

What is WebRatio
15
An Eclipse-based development environment allowing:
Modeling: ER + WebML + BPMN
100% code generation of standard JEE applications
Clear separation between design time and run time
No proprietary runtime
Quick and agile development cycles
Extending the generation rules
Defining new presentation styles
Defining new components
Versioning, teamwork, full lifecycle mgt

Who are the user of WebRatio
16
Business Process
Analyst
(*) 4 days
(*) 15 days
Application Analyst /WebRatio Modeler
Model editor
Application Model(ER + WebML)
Process Model
(BPMN)
Standard Java
Web application
Generation rules
Custom Model Components
(Java, API ,…)
Layout Templates(HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ...)
Web
Designer
Java
Programmer
(*) Learning time
(*) 5 days
(*) 5 days

A broad spectrum of possible applications
17
Document Management
Customer Information Mgt
Sales and LeadManagement
Web Content Management
Knowledge Management
CustomerRelationshipManagement
Learning Management
Partner Relationship Mgt
Knowledge Support
Marketing Resources Mgt
Project Management
Web Customer
Services
Business Intelligence
Supply Chain Management
B2C/B2B
E-Commerce
Enterprise Resource Planning
Web Front-End of accounting sys.
Financial Services
Supplier Relationship Mgt
Payment Services Orchestration
Corporate Operations
Human Capital Management
Product Life Cycle Management
Front-Office Process Mgt

Summary
WebRatio is
now at its 6th major release
in the market since 2001
WebRatio customers
100+ companies and 500+ users
in Italy, Europe and South America
WebRatio partners
40+ software houses and system integrators
300+ universities worldwide, 12.000+ students

3. Requirements and discussion

Modeling and standardization gap
20
A perceived gap in the standardization efforts
User interaction has been overlooked in modeling proposals
Previous attempts failed because of:
Low usability and effectiveness of notation
Missing solid implementations with vendors support

Lesson learned (so far)
21
Reasons for the success of the current notation
Extremely compact (no useless overhead)
Effective (allows to model exactly what users want)
Efficient (grants high reusability of model fragments)
Easy to learn (very low learning curve)
Comprehensive (covers most of the web interaction needs)
Open and extensible (for covering any ad hoc logic)
Perceived missing aspects
Appropriate management of client-side logics, RIAs (Rich Internet Applications), AJAX, complex user events
Full-fledged support to UML class diagrams (esp. methods)

WebML in the OMG framework
22
Exploit the possible relations with
BPMN -- Already in place
Class diagrams
SoaML
Other standards?
Support the standardization
Refine the metamodel
Implement appropriate injectors to MOF-compliant models

WebML standardization effort
23
Gather interest and consensus
From vendors and users
Open to changes, extensions, integration
Establish a joint effort / strategy
Decide scope
Possible options:
Only Web
Web + Mobile
Generic Graphical UI
Decide RFP vs. RFC
Pros and cons

Thanks
www.webratio.comcontact@webratio.com

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url_unknown	10
http://feeds.feedburner.com	5
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http://www2.webratio.com	1
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WebML for OMG

by Marco Brambilla on Jun 22, 2011

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