A Model-Driven Approach for Developing Responsive Web Apps

Abstract

Nowadays users have multiple devices to access a myriad of web and mobile applications. This has increased the importance of developing such applications in a responsive way, i.e. with the ability to seamlessly display their contents on multiple devices. This paper proposes the XIS-Web technology as a model-driven approach focused in the development of responsive web applications. XIS-Web technology includes two main parts: the XIS-Web modeling language, implemented as a UML profile; and the XIS-Web framework, which is a set of integrated software tools. XIS-Web stands out in four key aspects: supports the modeling of web applications around six viewpoints, which ultimately promotes the separation of concerns that is key to managing complexity; generates user-interface models from extended use-case models, relieving this cumbersome and time consuming task from the user; employs latest generation web technologies (such as HTML5, JavaScript, CSS) that allow the required flexibility of developing responsive web applications; and allows the creation of platform-independent models without requiring a significant learning curve. This paper also presents an evaluation conducted in a controlled environment with a group of independent users, and briefly introduces simple case studies.