Designing quality web applications using patterns

Abstract

Patterns are commonly utilized by Web developers for reusability purposes. However, this paper shows how Web patterns can also enhance the quality of Web applications. Firstly, Web quality is divided into five major components, namely usability, functionality, reliability, efficiency, and maintainability. Secondly, the relationship of these quality components with certain Web patterns is demonstrated and a set of guidelines for designing quality Web applications using these patterns is proposed. A successful Web site is then used as a case- study to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed guidelines. The Web patterns utilized by the site under study are identified and matched with the proposed list of patterns. Finally, we investigated how these patterns contribute to the success of the specific Web application.