Analysis and Design of e-Commerce Applications on the Web: A Case Study of OO Techniques and Notations

This paper reports on a study and comparison of two techniques and notations suitable for the analysis and design of Web-based electronic commerce (ecommerce) applications. Some of the challenges facing developers of Webbased e-commerce applications are identified, examined and discussed. Individually these challenges are not unique but their combination and severity make the development of applications for the WWW a rather difficult softwareengineering problem. Techniques and notations devised to address some of these challenges are identified from the literature. The Technique for Analysing and Specifying Transactional Internet Sites of Beaudet et al. (1998) and the Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Method (OOHDM) of Schwabe and Rossi (1998) were selected to analyse and design a typical e-commerce application. The results of this study are then used to evaluate the suitability of the two approaches for the development of Web-based applications. The paper concludes that the Beaudet et al. approach is more suited to rapid development projects and OOHDM to situations where comprehensiveness of specification is more important than speed. Both approaches need to be supplemented by additional techniques and supporting notations, particularly in the area of physical design.