An Empirical Review of the Connection Between Model Viewer Characteristics and the Comprehension of Conceptual Process Models

Abstract

Understanding conceptual models of business domains is a key skill for practitioners tasked with systems analysis and design. Research in this field predominantly uses experiments with specific user proxy cohorts to examine factors that explain how well different types of conceptual models can be comprehended by model viewers. However, the results from these studies are difficult to compare. One key difficulty rests in the unsystematic and fluctuating consideration of model viewer characteristics (MVCs) to date. In this paper, we review MVCs used in prominent prior studies on conceptual model comprehension. We then design an empirical review of the influence of MVCS through a global, cross-sectional experimental study in which over 500 student and practitioner users were asked to answer comprehension questions about a prominent type of conceptual model -BPMN process models. As an experimental treatment, we used good versus bad layout in order to increase the variance of performance. Our results show MVC to be a multi-dimensional construct. Moreover, process model comprehension is related in different ways to different traits of the MVC construct. Based on these findings, we offer guidance for experimental designs in this area of research and provide implications for the study of MVCs.

Who Is Behind the Model? Classifying Modelers Based on Pragmatic Model Features

“…Note that our approach is independent of the question whether students and practitioners always represent valid proxies. For a recent discussion of student / practitioner differences, refer to [15].…”

“…However, throughout the body of research that deals with expertise-related differences, no single and agreed upon criterion is used for distinguishing experts from novices. In fact, in [15], the authors define and test the effect of different dimensions of expertise, such as familiarity with a modeling language, intensity of modeling engagement, and knowledge of modeling concepts. In particular, they examined the distinction between students and practitioners, indicating that students exhibit different patterns of interaction with models as compared to practitioners.…”

“…Novices have more difficulties to recognize semantic patterns from graphics and tie them to long term memory concepts. Thus, in general, reading a model entails a higher cognitive load for a novice than for an expert [6,15]. In particular, this cognitive load and the understanding performance can be affected by graphical properties and layout of the model [15].…”

The Repercussions of Business Process Modeling Notations on Mental Load and Mental Effort

“…Concerning research on process model comprehension, [30] gives insights into subject-specific characteristics (e.g., theoretical knowledge) influencing process model comprehension. In turn, [31] evaluates different process modeling notations with respect to their comprehensibility.…”

Business process modeling: A webibliominig perspective of architecture frameworks

“…Another proof of BPMN's flexibility in its application to different domains of interest is set forth in the research by Chinosi and Trombetta (2012), which affirms BPMN as the standard to graphically represent processes that occur in virtually all types ranging from cooking recipes to the Nobel Prize-awarding process, incident management, e-mail voting systems, travel booking procedures, and more. Mendling, Recker, Reijers, and Leopold (2018) explain that BPMN covers the areas of process documentation and scenario improvement (process optimization)…”