Modelling Web Navigation by Statechart

UML,OOP,面向对象

HKU CSIS Tech Report TR-2000-01

ModellingWebNavigationbyStatechart

KarlR.P.H.LeungLucasC.K.HuiS.M.YiuRickyW.M.Tang

DepartmentofComputingandMathematics,

HongKongInstituteofVocationalEducation(TsingYi),

HongKong.

email:kleung@

DepartmentofComputerScienceandInformationSystems,

TheUniversityofHongKong,

HongKong.

emails:hui,smyiu,wmtang2@csis.hku.hk

Abstract

Thereisatrendofincreasingsizeofwebsitesandin-creasingcomplexityofwebpagesbydynamiccontentinre-centyears.Currentlyavailablewebnavigationmodelingtoolsareunabletocopewiththeneedofmodelingthesecontemporarywebsites,especiallythosewithdynamiccon-tent.Thisneedisanalyzedinthispaperandawebnav-igationmodelbasedonstatechartisproposedtomeettherequirements.Themodelwillserveasatoolforthemodel-ingandanalyzingnavigationofcomplexanddynamicwebsites.

per,wewillemploystatechart[3]tosolvethisproblemofmodelingwebnavigation.Asouraimistomodelwebnav-igation,presentationdetailsofweb,suchassize,positionandcolorofwebpageelements,althougharealsoofim-portancetothehumancomputerinteraction,willbeoutofscopeforthispaper.

InSection2,webnavigationandmodelingwillbeintro-duced,alongwithbackgroundinformationonStatechart.AdetailedanalysisondifferentkindsofwebnavigationwillbepresentedinSection3.OurmodelofwebnavigationwillbediscussedinSection4,andaconclusionofthispa-perwillbegiveninSection5.

1Introduction

TheexponentialgrowthoftheWorldWideWebandelectroniccommerceinrecentyearsgiverisetoaneedofmodelingandanalyzingthebrowsingsemanticsofwebsites,whichhaveincreasedinsizeandcomplexity.Asinanyothersoftwaredevelopment,adetailedmodeleasede-velopmentandmaintenanceofthewebsite.Inaddition,themodelcanhelpintheanalysisofnavigationinthemod-eledwebsite.Undesirablesituationscanbeidenti edandeliminated,andimprovementscanbemade.

Modelingwebnavigationmaynotbeaseasyasitseems.Webpageshasevolvedfromsimpletext,graphicsandhy-perlinksafewyearsagotothecontemporarydynamicwebpageswithvariesextensionsandscriptsandclientsidepro-gramsembedded.Previousworksonmodelingwebnaviga-tion[15,11]plex,dynamiccontemporarywebpages,whicharethemostinneedofmodeling,cannotbemodeled.Inthispa-1

2Background

2.1WebNavigation

WiththewidespreadacceptanceoftheWorldWideWeb,hypertext[13],whichistheinformationstructureusedinWWW,hasbecomethedefactostandardofinformationstorageandretrievalintheInternet.TheWWWcanbeviewedasthecollectionofwebserversthatcommunicateswithwebbrowserusingtheconnectionlessHTTPprotocolinrequest-replypairs,andstreamouttherequestedcon-tentwrittenintheHypertextMarkupLanguage(HTML).HTMLhasevolvedovertimeandwithotherWebtechnolo-gies,andthuscreatedsomenavigationfeaturesthatarenotavailablebyhypertextalone.

InWWW,ersnavigatefromawebpagetotheotherbyclickingonahy-perlink.Inadditiontothisbasicnavigationmethod,var-iousclientsidescriptsandprograms,suchasJavascript,