Situational Requirements Engineering for the Development of Content Management System-based Web Applications

Web applications are evolving towards strong content-centered Web applications. The development processes and implementation of these applications are unlike the development and implementation of traditional information systems. In this paper we propose WebEngineering Method; a method for developing content management system (CMS) based Web applications. Critical to a successful development of CMS-based Web applications, is the adaptation to the dynamic business. We first define CMS-based Web applications and identify their specific characteristics. Combining these characteristics with situational factors in projects, we show that by taking parts of proven methods such as UML based Web-engineering (UWE) and the Unified Software Development Process (UP), a unique method can be assembled for situational development of CMS-based Web applications. We successfully validated the method at GX, a web-technology specialized in developing and implementing CMS-based Web applications. Future research focuses on optimizing the development method, and creating reference models and modeling tools for the development of CMS-based Web applications.