An Approach to Modeling Hypermedia Web Applications

In hypermedia Web applications, the coexistence of different interactive styles, of hypermedia features with application operations, of complex information structures with transactions upon them, raises new problems for modelers to require a new modeling paradigm urgently. In this paper, we propose a modeling approach to partly solve the problems. A PFD (page flow diagram) is first constructed. Then, a typed PFD is derived from the initial PFD by associating pages and links with type information. Moreover, an LTS (labeled transition system) provides a convenient way to model the structure and behavior of hypermedia Web applications in a way that avoids issues associated with the implementation. To further model the hypermedia structures precisely, we change/extend some of LTS's constructors and get a typed LTS corresponding to the typed PFD. The typed LTS is a mathematical analytical tool/notation that makes it possible to test and verify software automatically.