by Scott Tilley

The 3rd International Workshop on Web Site Evolution (WSE 2001) was held on November 10 in Florence, Italy. WSE was one of four co-located events with the International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM 2001). The theme of WSE 2001 was "Access for All", a reflection of the goal of making the Web a vehicle for truly universal communication, providing comparable experiences to diverse users, irrespective of their national language, physical abilities, or computing platform. I personally consider WSE 2001 to be a resounding success -- but then again, I would, since I was the General Chair ☺.

Web site evolution is a newly emerging sub-discipline of software engineering related to the study of how large-scale Web sites can evolve in a disciplined manner in response to new technical requirements and changing strategic goals. As the 3rd in a series of workshops focused on this topic, WSE 2001 focused on the theme of  "Access for All," which refers to making a Web site available to multiple users (e.g., those with impaired vision), in multiple languages (e.g., Chinese and English), and on multiple platforms (e.g., WAP phones).

WSE 2001 was a companion event to SIGDOC 2001, the conference sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group for Documentation, a professional organization dedicated to advanced topics in documentation for and with computers. The theme of this year's SIGDOC conference was "Going Global: Communicating in the New Millennium." The conference was held from Oct. 21-24 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A more detailed summary of SIGDOC 2001 can be found in SIGPC V5N7: SIGDOC 2001.

On a personal note, I am deeply indebted to all the people who helped in the organization of the workshop. Thanks to the organizers of ICSM 2001 for inviting us to co-locate WSE 2001 with them in Florence. Thanks to the members of the Program Committee for their high-quality reviewing of the proposals. Thanks to the workshop participants who traveled from all over the world to attend the event. Finally, thanks to the sponsors for their gracious support. Without the backing of the IEEE Computer Society's Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE) and the Task Force on IT for Business Applications (TFIT), the Alberta Software Engineering Research Consortium (ASERC), and the University of California, Riverside, the workshop would not have been possible.

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Workshop Themes

The central theme of WSE 2001 was a reflection of the fact that the beginning of the new millennium provides a singular opportunity to view Web sites in a new perspective: as a vehicle for truly universal communication. Such an inclusive definition implies that Web sites should provide comparable experiences to diverse users, irrespective of their national language, physical abilities, or computing platform. In other words, access for all.

From the WSE 2001 Call for Papers:

The goal of this one-day workshop is to bring together members of the communication design, software engineering, and information technology communities to discuss techniques for evolving Web sites from their current condition to a state that meets the criteria outlined above. Architectural styles and tool support for multilingual Web sites is currently quite limited. Expertise in constructing Web pages that are accessible to the disabled is available but not widely utilized. The explosion of non-traditional computing platforms for browsing the Web, such as PDAs, WAP-enabled phones, and Internet appliances, is forcing Web professionals to rethink the separation of form from content.

Within this context, WSE 2001 provided a wonderful opportunity for the exchange of information related to exciting new research and experience reports in areas such as:

• Migrating to multilingual Web sites
• Enhancing Web sites to make them accessible to the disabled
• Making Web site content available in multiple formats for multiple platforms
• Case studies of large-scale evolution
• Fundamental design issues that transcend the medium

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Workshop Structure

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Program Highlights

As described above, the technical papers presented at WSE 2001 covered all of the main workshop themes. I found the presentations to be uniformly excellent. However, if I had to pick a few personal highlights of the day, they would include the following:

• The keynote address "Web Accessibility" by Cornelia Boldyreff of the University of Durham, UK
• The presentation in the "Languages" session on "Knowledge Representation for Web based Services in a Multicultural Environment" by Hiranmay Ghosh of Tata Infotech Research Group, India
• The talks in the "Accessibility" session on "Requirements for Maintaining Web Access for Hearing Impaired Individuals" by Daniel Berry of the University of Waterloo, Canada and "Improving Web Accessibility for Visually Handicapped People using KAI" by Mercedes Macías of the Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
• The paper in the "Evolution I" session on "Preparing the Ground for Website Metrics Research" by Paul Warren of the University of Hull, UK (the talk was delivered by his co-author Craig Gaskell)
• The presentation in the "Evolution II" session on "Leveraging Program Analysis for Web Site Reverse Engineering" by Holger Kienle of the University of Victoria, Canada

I also had fun doing the session on "Devices" with Ken Wong of the University of Alberta, Canada and Bas Toeter of the Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We talked about how mobile devices such as PDAs and cellular phones that offer Internet access are proliferating. Due to the many unique characteristics of these devices, such as their small screen size and limited network connectivity, existing Web sites may have to undergo significant evolution to support this type of mobile client. Our presentation outlined some of the issues in accessing Web sites from Mobile devices, such as the Apple Newton, the Compaq iPAQ, and WAP-enabled cell phones. These issues were based on our experiences as both users of mobile devices and as content providers.

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Final Comments and Photos

As always, I took a lot of photos during and after the workshop with my Canon Powershot S100 Digital Elph. Several of the pictures are a little fuzzy, due to the low lighting in the rooms; this was the second-to-last stop on a long trip, and I was hesitant to use my flash too much because I forgot to bring my battery charger along. Some of the more interesting photos are shown below; click on the thumbnail image to view the full-size picture.

Based on the success of WSE 2001, plans are already underway for the next workshop. WSE 2002 will be held on October 2, 2002 in Montréal, Canada as part of ICSM 2002. The Program Chairs for WSE 2002 are Cornelia Boldyreff of the University of Durham, UK and Paolo Tonella of ITC-irst, Italy. Join us in Montréal next autumn for the theme of "Web Services" -- a very interesting and timely topic currently enjoying significant interest in both the academic and practitioner communities.

One last note. WSE 2001 represented the 3rd and last major event that I have been involved in organizing this year (the other two were NCC 2001 and SIGDOC 2001). I enjoyed working with everyone and am very proud of the final result in each case. However, working on so many conferences at the same time is not something I wish to repeat in 2002, if you know what I mean. ☺

	Holger Kienle, Ken Wong, and I at the dinner reception for ICSM 2001 on Thursday night. The dinner was held in an old summer house, full of beautiful paintings and sculptures. All three of us had just flown all night and part of the next day from Toronto and CASCON (see SIGPC V5N8: CASCON 2001) to arrive in Florence, so we were pretty tired at this point. (102KB)
	The WSE 2001 keynote address by Cornelia Boldyreff on "Web Accessibility." Cornelia's presentation kicked off a full day of short talks and active discussions. (90KB)
	The pontevecchio  -- the famous old bridge in Florence crossing the Arno river. An image of the bridge adorned the WSE 2001 Proceedings cover. (329KB)
	Hausi Müller, Ken Wong, and myself getting ready for some tourist activities the day after the WSE 2001 workshop. This is in the lobby of the regal Grand Hotel Baglioni. A highlight of the afternoon's site seeing was viewing Michelangelo's "David". (118KB)
	A view of the Duomo in Florence, from the Grand Hotel Baglioni's rooftop gardens. (92KB)
	These two pictures are from the WSE / SCAM victory party. SCAM is the Source Code Analysis and Manipulation workshop run by Mark Harman of Brunel University, UK. The SCAM workshop took place on the same day as WSE, so we decided to get together for a relaxing evening afterwards. (359KB, 354KB)