Structural Media Types in the Development of Data-Intensive Web Information Systems

Abstract

In this chapter, a conceptual modeling approach to the design of web information systems (WIS) will be outlined. The notion of media type is central to this approach. Basically, a media type is defined by a view on an underlying database schema, which allows us to transform the data content of a database into a collection of media objects that represent the data content presented at the web interface. The view is extended by operations and an adaptivity mechanism, which permits the splitting of media objects into several smaller units in order to adapt the WIS to different user preferences, technical environments and communication channels. The information entering the design of media types is extracted from a previous story boarding phase. In consecutive phases, media types have to be extended by style patterns as the next step toward implementation.