Reference software architecture for improving modifiability of personalised web applications - a controlled experiment

Abstract : Although web personalisation has been studied for the last two decades, there remains a need to address current challenges: context-awareness and the inclusion in a business environment. The wide variety of mobile devices and their continuous technological evolution demands the permanent development of new personalisation strategies. Additionally, two factors complicate the inclusion of personalised web applications in a business environment: the frequent change of personalisation strategies for each business, and the technical complexity to integrate these strategies in a short time. We propose a reference architecture as a tool to favour their modifiability. Moreover, our proposal facilitates the opportunity for enterprises to adopt web-personalised systems into their business as a strategic tool. A controlled experiment validates our approach; we compare five change scenarios that are implemented under two architectures: experimental and control architecture. We used change scenarios derived from a real Brazilian e-commerce enterprise. 352 L-V. Cobaleda et al.