Improving a web application using design patterns: A case study

Adopting design pattern while designing web applications can promote reusability and consistency of the web application. Without the adoption of design patterns or wrong selection of them will make the development of web application more complex and hard to be maintained. Thus knowledge in design patterns is essential in selecting the most appropriate patterns in the web applications development. Unfortunately, the ability of developers in applying design pattern is undetermined. The good practice of using design patterns is encouraged and efforts have to be taken to enhance the knowledge on design pattern. This paper analyses and compares a number of design patterns focusing on architectural and navigational design patterns for general features in web applications. Finally, we discuss a case study of our school's website and propose several design patterns to enhance the usability of the website.