Enriching Conceptual Modeling of XML-Aware Adaptive Web Systems with Object-Oriented Constructs and UML Diagrams

This work presents a model for Adaptive Web Systems designed with a two-layer architecture. For the description of the high-level structure of the application domain we propose an object-oriented model based on the class diagram of the Unified Modeling Language, extended with (i) a graph-based formalism for capturing navigational properties of the hypermedia and (ii) a logic-based formalism for expressing further semantic properties of the domain. The model makes use of XML for the description of metadata about "neutral" pages that have to be adapted to user characteristics. Moreover, we propose a three-dimensional approach to model different aspects of the adaptation model, based on different user characteristics: an adaptive hypermedia is modeled with respect to such dimensions, and a view over it corresponds to each potential position of the user in the “adaptation space”. In particular, a rule-based method is used to determine the generation and deliver process that best fits technological constraints.