Abstract Social services are rendered to those citizens, who require them considering their health, age or unfavourable social situation and who are unable of overcoming their social burdens and less than auspicious circumstances without external aid. Social services are essential not just because many people require them but particularly because were they not to be available, a large part of the public would lose their ability to participate in all aspects of life in a society. This would make it impossible for their human and civil rights to be upheld and lead to their exclusion from society. Social development, more favourable living standards, progress in the field of medicine and championing of social rights result in less people dying in childhood or at a productive age nowadays than before. It can be argued that the number of pensioners will be constantly increasing and that this is an accompaniment of a successfully developing civilisation. Because of their numbers, pensioners are becoming an exceptionally grave subject of social exclusion. It is therefore imperative that we realise the disadvantages the elderly face and devote appropriate attention to the issues surrounding the planning of social services. In terms of the set objective, it is necessary to evaluate and compare individual mid-term plans for the development of social services at certain locations and also to compare and evaluate the communal plans of selected cities. The dissertation proved that it is indeed necessary to pay due attention to the studied planning of social services. This is because there is a need to harmonise supply and demand in relation to social services. Ensuring the availability of a high-quality social services network for the elderly is only possible given the presence of a complex concept of social and medical care. One must however always take into consideration not just the current demographic trends but also the circumstances in the particular area as well as the degree of interest of the various subjects who are immediately involved in the issues surrounding the particular type of social services. One can undoubtedly say that the quality of social services on offer (not just for the elderly) is increasing both in relation to law No. 108/2006 Col. regarding social services but also in accordance with the recipients? wishes and demands.

Test Driven Development (TDD) é uma prática ágil que ganhou popularidade ao ser definida como parte fundamental na eXtreme Programming (XP). Essa prática determina que os testes devem ser escritos antes da implementação do código. TDD e seus efeitos têm sido amplamente estudados e comparados com a prática Test Last Development (TLD) em diversos trabalhos. Entretanto, poucos estudos abordam TDD no desenvolvimento de Web Services (WS), devido à complexidade em testar as dependências entre os componentes distribuídos e as particularidades da Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Este trabalho tem por objetivo definir e validar uma abordagem para o desenvolvimento de WS baseada na prática de TDD, denominada WS-TDD. Essa abordagem guia os desenvolvedores no uso de TDD durante o desenvolvimento de WS, sugerindo ferramentas e técnicas para lidar com as dependências e as particularidades de SOA, com foco na criação dos testes unitários e integrados automatizados na linguagem Java. No intuito de definir e validar a abordagem proposta, quatro métodos de pesquisa foram executados: (i) questionário presencial; (ii) experimento; (iii) entrevista presencial com cada participante do experimento e (iv) triangulação dos resultados com as pessoas que participaram nos três métodos anteriores. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, a WS-TDD mostrou-se mais eficiente quando comparada a TLD, aumentando a qualidade interna do software e a produtividade dos desenvolvedores. No entanto, a qualidade externa do software diminuiu, apresentando um maior número de defeitos quando comparada a TLD. Por fim, é importante destacar que a abordagem proposta surge como uma alternativa simples e prática para a adoção de TDD no desenvolvimento de WS, trazendo benefícios a qualidade interna e contribuindo para aumentar a produtividade dos desenvolvedores. Porém, a qualidade externa do software diminuiu ao utilizar a WS-TDD. / Test Driven Development (TDD) is an agile practice that gained popularity when defined as a fundamental part in eXtreme Programming (XP). This practice determines that the tests should be written before implementing the code. TDD and its effects have been widely studied and compared with the Test Last Development (TLD) in several studies. However, few studies address TDD practice in the development of Web Services (WS), due to the complexity of testing the dependencies among distributed components and the specific characteristics of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This study aims to define and validate an approach to develop WS based on the practice of TDD, called WS-TDD. This approach guides developers to use TDD to develop WS, suggesting tools and techniques to deal with SOA particularities and dependencies, focusing on the creation of the unitary and integrated automated tests in Java. In order to define and validate the proposed approach, four research methods have been carried out: (i) questionnaire; (ii) practical experiment; (iii) personal interview with each participant in the experiment and (iv) triangulation of the results with the people who participated in the three previous methods. According to the obtained results, WS-TDD was more efficient compared to TLD, increasing internal software quality and developer productivity. However, the external software quality has decreased due to a greater number of defects compared to the TLD approach. Finally, it is important to highlight that the proposed approach is a simple and practical alternative for the adoption of TDD in the development of WS, bringing benefits to internal quality and contributing to increase the developers’ productivity. However, the external software quality has decreased when using WS-TDD.

Test Driven Development (TDD) é uma prática ágil que ganhou popularidade ao ser definida como parte fundamental na eXtreme Programming (XP). Essa prática determina que os testes devem ser escritos antes da implementação do código. TDD e seus efeitos têm sido amplamente estudados e comparados com a prática Test Last Development (TLD) em diversos trabalhos. Entretanto, poucos estudos abordam TDD no desenvolvimento de Web Services (WS), devido à complexidade em testar as dependências entre os componentes distribuídos e as particularidades da Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Este trabalho tem por objetivo definir e validar uma abordagem para o desenvolvimento de WS baseada na prática de TDD, denominada WS-TDD. Essa abordagem guia os desenvolvedores no uso de TDD durante o desenvolvimento de WS, sugerindo ferramentas e técnicas para lidar com as dependências e as particularidades de SOA, com foco na criação dos testes unitários e integrados automatizados na linguagem Java. No intuito de definir e validar a abordagem proposta, quatro métodos de pesquisa foram executados: (i) questionário presencial; (ii) experimento; (iii) entrevista presencial com cada participante do experimento e (iv) triangulação dos resultados com as pessoas que participaram nos três métodos anteriores. De acordo com os resultados obtidos, a WS-TDD mostrou-se mais eficiente quando comparada a TLD, aumentando a qualidade interna do software e a produtividade dos desenvolvedores. No entanto, a qualidade externa do software diminuiu, apresentando um maior número de defeitos quando comparada a TLD. Por fim, é importante destacar que a abordagem proposta surge como uma alternativa simples e prática para a adoção de TDD no desenvolvimento de WS, trazendo benefícios a qualidade interna e contribuindo para aumentar a produtividade dos desenvolvedores. Porém, a qualidade externa do software diminuiu ao utilizar a WS-TDD. / Test Driven Development (TDD) is an agile practice that gained popularity when defined as a fundamental part in eXtreme Programming (XP). This practice determines that the tests should be written before implementing the code. TDD and its effects have been widely studied and compared with the Test Last Development (TLD) in several studies. However, few studies address TDD practice in the development of Web Services (WS), due to the complexity of testing the dependencies among distributed components and the specific characteristics of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This study aims to define and validate an approach to develop WS based on the practice of TDD, called WS-TDD. This approach guides developers to use TDD to develop WS, suggesting tools and techniques to deal with SOA particularities and dependencies, focusing on the creation of the unitary and integrated automated tests in Java. In order to define and validate the proposed approach, four research methods have been carried out: (i) questionnaire; (ii) practical experiment; (iii) personal interview with each participant in the experiment and (iv) triangulation of the results with the people who participated in the three previous methods. According to the obtained results, WS-TDD was more efficient compared to TLD, increasing internal software quality and developer productivity. However, the external software quality has decreased due to a greater number of defects compared to the TLD approach. Finally, it is important to highlight that the proposed approach is a simple and practical alternative for the adoption of TDD in the development of WS, bringing benefits to internal quality and contributing to increase the developers’ productivity. However, the external software quality has decreased when using WS-TDD.