Model-driven Web Engineering methods have improved both the quality and the efficiency of the Web application development. These methods use conceptual models for gathering, in an abstract way, a detailed representation of the Web application to be developed. The most notable advantage of this approach is that using these models, which have been widely validated in industrial environments, it is feasible the systematic code generation of a Web application.

Web 2.0 applications emphasize a high user involvement in order to create the application content: personal opinions, photos, definitions or video. This fact highlights the collaborative facet of Web 2.0 applications and the fundamental role of the end-user. With the goal of achieving the end-user collaboration, it is an essential requirement the definition of a precise and intuitive interaction process. This goal has been achieved in Web 2.0 applications by means of: 1) an advanced user interface, from the technological point of view, and with a high usability degree; 2) the reuse of the best practices, which have been widely applied into the Web 2.0 applications. These practices provide to the user a well-known and precise way to interact with the application. In order to develop Web 2.0 quality applications, both characteristics must be included into Web Engineering methods.

This PhD thesis presents the OOWS 2.0 model-driven Web Engineering method as an incremental and required evolution of the OOWS method. The main contribution of this new method is to provide the required conceptual expressivity for developing Web 2.0 applications. Specifically, the contributions are focus on supporting the advanced interaction aspects, which are very important in this domain, with end-users. With the purpose of achieving this goal, the PhD thesis introduces a set of conceptual models, which gather, unambiguously, the new interaction requirements demanded by Web 2.0 applications.

First, the PhD thesis presents an Abstract Interaction Model for describing the interaction from a technologically independent point of view. This model arises from the lessons learned in the application of the OOWS and OO-Method methods. This new model is provided by means of the selection and extension of conceptual primitives from both methods. The result is a model to specify precisely the interaction process of a Web 2.0 application.

With the goal of enriching the user experience using the interface, the PhD thesis introduces a User Interface Model for Rich Internet Applications (RIA). RIA technologies are a key element in Web 2.0 applications in order to develop user interfaces with a high usability level. The proposed model supports the wide range of RIA technologies available to deal with the user interface modelling.

Finally, the PhD thesis introduces the Web 2.0 pattern term at the modelling level. A Web 2.0 pattern represents a mechanism, recurrently applied in the Web 2.0 development, with the goal of improving the end-user interaction. The PhD thesis defines, from a set of popular Web 2.0 applications, a Web 2.0 pattern library. For providing a formal description, the patterns of this library are represented using a strategy based on conceptual models. Furthermore, a model-to-model transformation strategy is proposed in order to introduce the patterns semantics into a Web Engineering method.

These proposals are rigorously integrated and applied in the context of the OOWS 2.0 method. As final result, the most significant contribution of this PhD thesis is an original model-driven Web Engineering method, which supports the advanced interaction required by Web 2.0 applications.