How to gauge complexity by amount of content ?
Answers
Measures of size and complexity for web-site content
Adrian Cowderoy
Abstract
Web-site content can be characterised in terms of size, element complexity, coherence
and exceptions. Appropriate measures can be defined for all the common types of digital
asset. These measures are available for use throughout the lifecycle.
A measurement plan for projects can be derived from a variant of GQM, the information
that can meaningfully be provided by different activities, and the extent to the tolerance of
the key development staff.
The use of complexity and size for improving website costs and quality has similarities
to that for software development, however the detail and emphasis differs at almost every
point.
1. Introduction
At the Multimedia House of Quality (MMHQ) we have been required by clients to provide
improved quantitative methods for controlling project costs for the content-development
activities involved in website production. To achieve this we use measures of size and
complexity, adopting principles developed in the software industry by Fenton (for software
metrics definition) and by Basili and Rombach (for Goal Question Metrics definition) [1][2].
The work also builds on the quality-oriented framework developed by MultiSpace (project
EP23066 in the EU ESPRIT programme) [3]. Lists and supporting information can be found
at the MMHQ website, http://www.mmhq.co.uk/my-complexity/
The paper begins by addressing the business objectives for size and complexity measures.
The categorisation and measurement processes are then described. This is followed by a
procedure for developing a measurement plan. Three case studies are presented. Finally there
is a discussion, in comparison to the example set by the software industry.
Table 1: website terminology used in this paper
Content – all the elements of the website which contain no functionality, as in simple
HTML pages. JavaScript, Lingo, etc, add functionality to page and movie content.
Assets –images, narrative, movies, etc, which collectively comprise the content.
Storyboard – the sequence of narrative and interactive events within each scene of a
movie/animation, defined against the frame number.
Asset-component – a subdivision of an asset that is only accessible to its developer.
Lifecycle – website development involves parallel development of different types of asset,
often with prototyping, and concluding with overall integration.
2. The business objectives
Basili and Rombach recommend that the effort to regularly collect measures of size and
complexity must be justified by business questions, relating to business goals. For website
production, our experience is that there are three major issues that effect most projects, and
several secondary ones.