Roughly speaking, two somewhat opposite (or complementary)
approaches exist to improve quality factors ofWeb
applications: (a) Forward Engineering, which proposes formalisms
and methods aimed at supporting the design of
Web applications; (b) the Reverse Engineering approach,
which assumes that a Web application already exists and
supports its analysis, testing and re-structuring.
In the present thesis, the latter approach is followed, by
investigating and defining a number of conceptual tools,
analysis, testing and re-structuring techniques. Validity of
the approach and solutions devised was assessed by extensive
empirical work.