| Abstract: |
There
is an ever increasing emphasis on providing Web-based services
that assist a Web user to search, compare, evaluate and get
recommendation on various products and services over the Web.
This thesis has two basic goals: to provide an up-to-date
survey of Web-based system evaluation and recommendation concepts
and products, and to design and develop a visual version of
the LSP method for system evaluation. The basic contribution
of the thesis is a new completely visual environment for creating
and using complex criteria for evaluation, comparison, and
selection of arbitrary complex systems. The graphical environment
is designed through a process of stepwise refinements, and
is sufficient as a basis for implementation of a comprehensive
Web-based system evaluation tool. A prototype of such a tool
is developed in Java and tested using all major Web browsers.
The goals of this design are to provide a high level of user
scalability where the tool can be used by a spectrum of users
with different levels of system evaluation expertise, and
to take advantage of specific Web characteristics and application
trends. |
