Three Empirical Studies on Estimating the Design Effort of Web Applications

Our research focuses on the effort needed for designing modern Web applications. The design effort is an important part of the total development effort, since the implementation can be partially automated by tools. We carried out three empirical studies with students of advanced university classes enrolled in engineering and communication sciences curricula. The empirical studies are based on the use of W2000, a special-purpose design notation for the design of Web applications, but the hypotheses and results may apply to a wider class of modeling notations (e.g., OOHDM, WebML, or UWE). We started by investigating the relative importance of each design activity. We then assessed the accuracy of a priori design effort predictions and the influence of a few process-related factors on the effort needed for each design activity. We also analyzed the impact of attributes like the size and complexity of W2000 design artifacts on the total effort needed to design the user experience of web applications. In addition, we carried out a finer-grain analysis, by studying which of these attributes impact the effort devoted to the steps of the design phase that are followed when using W2000.