Software design patterns for data management features in web-based information systems

Abstract

In complex information systems, some features may recur hundreds of times. Therefore, identifying such features and suggesting suitable design solutions for them can simplify the development and maintenance of such complex systems. In that regard, this work introduces five design patterns that were utilized to develop data management features that recurred many times in several web-based information systems used to manage enterprise and student data at the German Jordanian University. In this context, a software design pattern describes a solution to design repeating software features. The proposed design patterns are documented in a general manner using UML diagrams to enable utilizing them in different web development platforms and to allow their development using popular object-oriented programming languages. In particular, the suggested patterns seek to solve the following software features: flexible user interface for data management, reusable module for dependent dropdown filters, table data lazy loading, unified modules to handle data addition and editing, and page state restoration when navigating between related pages. Not to mention, the validation results show that the discussed design patterns were used hundreds of times while implementing six information systems for the university. Specifically, one of the patterns was utilized more than 700 times. Additionally, as it seems that some of the design patterns in this work were not investigated in related work.

Keywords

• Software engineering
• Software design patterns
• Web application
• Application architecture
• User interface
• Data management