Adaptation and reuse in designing Web information systems

The increasing number of requirements for a Web information system asks for an engineered process in designing such a system. In this paper we focus on two of these requirements: presentation adaptation based on user preferences/device capabilities and reusability of the different design artifacts. Hera is a model-based design methodology for Web information systems. Adaptation and reuse can be tackled at different design levels in Hera. We illustrate by means of examples how adaptation and reuse can be achieved in the conceptual model, the application model, and the presentation model. Based on a static user profile, adaptation is realized by attaching appearance conditions to model elements. With respect to reusability we do focus on one mechanism that supports it, namely inheritance.