Supporting reusable Web design with HDM-Edit

As on-line and off-line electronic publishing is increasingly becoming a massive industrial activity, the design of web applications, and of hypermedia applications in general, needs to become a well-organized and efficient process. If a good design model is the first item in the agenda, immediately after design tools become necessary. This paper describes HDM-Edit, a schema editor that supports conceptual design of web (more generally, hypermedia) applications. HDM-Edit is a component of the JWeb system, which supports all the phases of web prototyping development. HDM-Edit can be used on its own, to support the design activity only and the production of high-quality design documentation, or in conjunction with other modules of JWeb. HDM-Edit promotes design reuse by supporting several navigation patterns as built-in modeling primitives and by allowing designers to derive the schema of a specific application as a set of hyperviews on the design of a family of applications (application framework). The paper analyzes the requirements for a design tool, sketches JWeb, describes HDM-Edit, discusses experiences of use, and finally compares the requirements with the current version of the tool.