Does the Level of Detail of UML Models Affect the Maintainability of Source Code?

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents an experiment carried out as a pilot study to obtain a first insight into the influence of the quality of UML models on the maintenance of the corresponding source code. The quality of the UML models is assessed by studying the amount of information they contain as measured through a level of detail metric. The experiment was carried out with 11 Computer Science students from the University of Leiden. The results obtained indicate a slight tendency towards obtaining better results when using low level of detail UML models, which contradicts our expectations based on previous research found in literature. Nevertheless, we are conscious that the results should be considered as preliminary results given the low number of subjects that participated in the experiment. Further replications of this experiment are planned with students and professionals in order to obtain more conclusive results.

Are Forward Designed or Reverse-Engineered UML diagrams more helpful for code maintenance?: A family of experiments

“…That being the case, a higher LoD would improve maintainers' performances owing to the fact that they would understand the system they have to maintain better. The results from [15] are not conclusive, but show a slight tendency in favor of high LoD diagrams. The similarities of the work presented in this paper with [15] arise from the fact that FD diagrams could be considered as having a high LoD, while RE diagrams could be considered as having a very high LoD.…”

“…The similarities of the work presented in this paper with [15] arise from the fact that FD diagrams could be considered as having a high LoD, while RE diagrams could be considered as having a very high LoD. The difference between [15] and the work presented here are the independent variables used (LoD of UML diagrams in the former, and the origin of UML diagrams in the latter), and the design of the experiment (within-subjects and betweensubjects respectively).…”

“…The differences between the work presented in [22] and ours are based on the nature of the empirical study (an explorative survey vs. an explicative family of experiments). -An experiment presented in [15] studies whether different Levels of Detail (LoD) in UML diagrams might influence the maintenance of source code. In [14,15]there is an assumption that the higher the amount of information put into a diagram, the more is known about the concepts/knowledge described in it.…”

“…-An experiment presented in [15] studies whether different Levels of Detail (LoD) in UML diagrams might influence the maintenance of source code. In [14,15]there is an assumption that the higher the amount of information put into a diagram, the more is known about the concepts/knowledge described in it. That being the case, a higher LoD would improve maintainers' performances owing to the fact that they would understand the system they have to maintain better.…”

“…Moreover, diagrams with a high level of detail are reported to be more helpful during software development [14], while those with a low level of detail seems to be better when performing maintenance tasks [15].…”