A Perspective on the Credibility Engineering of Web Applications

Abstract

The social aspects pertaining to a service provided by an organization are at least as significant as the technical aspects. The issue of credibility is a growing concern for the consumers of (persuasive) Web Applications in a variety of domains. Therefore, understanding the notion of credibility and addressing it systematically is crucial for an organization’s reputation. In this chapter, based on a given taxonomy of credibility, an approach to address one class of credibility, namely the Active Credibility, of Web Applications is considered. To that regard, a viewpoint-oriented framework for the active credibility engineering of Web Applications is proposed, and the managerial, societal, and technical viewpoints of it are analyzed in some detail. A few directions for extending the framework are outlined.