Managers don't code: making web services middleware applicable for end-users

Abstract

Today's web-pages are primarily designed for occasional usage. Professional users therefore use special applications that use Web Services increasingly. As the number of internet-users grows we argue that there is a disregarded growing gap between these professional- and occasional-users we refer to as experienced users. For this group of users with little or no programming-skills web-pages are inefficient but professional applications would be inexpedient. In this paper we describe how to make Web Services applicable for experienced web users. To support single Web Service calls efficiently we present a keyboard-controlled browser-embedded console with command auto-completion that wraps Web Services. To support multiple calls and automation we present a web-based IDE that allows visual composition of Web Service calls and simple control-structures that can be used on demand without installation and programming-skills. © Springer-Verlag 2004.