Towards an effective and integrated design for information systems

The development of information systems (IS) is of great importance for researchers and industrial users. Different methods for IS design have been proposed. Some put the emphasis on statical aspects, and others on dynamical aspects. A third category of methods has recently appeared, which try to take into account both aspects, and therefore provide an unified view of data and treatments. There also exist approaches that put the stress on rigour in the specification and validation process. This paper presents a CASE tool which gives conceptual help for IS design. On one hand, it handles the statical and dynamical aspects while providing the user with products that are readable and easy to understood and, on the other hand, it validates the specification obtained in a rigourous way. It is an attempt to satisfy both the designer and the user.