RMM: a methodology for structured hypermedia design

Abstract

Table 1 illustrates the usefulness of the RMM approach for design and development of hypermedia applications.The two axes representing the structure and volatility of the information are really continuums rather than discrete branches of dichotomy.Applications in the two domains we mentionedproduct catalogs and hypermedia front-ends of databases or legacy applications-are highly structured and have high information volatility, making the RMM methodology particularly appropriate.At the opposite end of the spectrum, an artistic work may not have a readily discernible structure and usually remains unchanged over time.In this case, RMM is not applicable.Highly structured applications that remain unchanged over a long period of time can benefit from the RMM methodology during the design and construction phases but do not require much maintenance, so that the updating problem is relatively unimportant and the advantage to be gained by the RMM approach is not as pronounced.Finally, applications that have irregular (or dynamic) structures and high volatility may gain little from the use of the RMM approach.In this case, however, we reserve judgment as it is possible that some parts of the domain may be structured and that the problem of high information volatility can be at least partially addressed.A number of commercial products, including Documentum by Documentum Inc., PDM by Xyvision Inc., RDM by Interleaf, and SGML Server by Information Dimensions, use an approach similar to RMM, in that they provide flexible access mechanisms to documents that are stored in a database.The approaches used in these products are proprietary and have not been reported in the research literature.Moreover, these systems do not provide support for the design process, which is the focus of RMM.