Evaluation of the comprehension of the dynamic modeling in UML

Otero, Mari Carmen; Dolado, José Javier

doi:10.1016/s0950-5849(03)00108-3

Cited by 32 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Others study styles and rigor in UML models (e.g., (Briand et al 2005;Nugroho 2009)) or look into the effect of using stereotypes on model comprehension (e.g., (Staron et al 2006;Sharif and Maletic 2009;Ricca et al 2010;Cruz-Lemus et al 2011b)). Finally, closest to our work, different UML diagram types are compared (Otero and Dolado 2004;Glezer et al 2005). In two controlled student experiments, Otero and Dolado (Otero and Dolado 2004) compare sequence diagrams and state machines.…”

Section: Empirical Studies On the Comprehensibility Of Uml Modelsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Finally, closest to our work, different UML diagram types are compared (Otero and Dolado 2004;Glezer et al 2005). In two controlled student experiments, Otero and Dolado (Otero and Dolado 2004) compare sequence diagrams and state machines. They observe that (1) state diagrams provide higher semantic comprehension of dynamic modeling in UML when the domain is real-time and sequence diagrams are better in the case of a management information system, and (2) regardless of the domain, a higher semantic comprehension of the UML designs is achieved when the dynamic behavior is modeled by using both sequence diagram and state machine.…”

Section: Empirical Studies On the Comprehensibility Of Uml Modelsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The difference between UML activity diagrams and state machines has not been compared in controlled experiments, neither with respect to comprehensibility nor with respect to manual test case derivation. Comprehensibility (also called understandability) in different studies is measured by & time need to read the diagram and to answer comprehensibility questions (Otero and Dolado 2004;Glezer et al 2005;Aranda et al 2007), & self-assessed perceived comprehensibility or confidence (Glezer et al 2005;Aranda et al 2007;Cioch 1991), & the number or proportion of correct answers to comprehensibility questions (Otero and Dolado 2004;Aranda et al 2007;Cioch 1991;Agarwal et al 1999;Genero et al 2008;De Lucia et al 2010), & understandability efficiency, i.e., number of correct answers to comprehensibility questions divided by time need (Genero et al 2008;Cruz-Lemus et al 2005), & recall, i.e., proportion of the correct answers given by the participant out of all correct answers, precision, i.e., proportion of the correct answers given by the participant out of all answers given, and the F-measure (= 2 (precision recall)/(precision + recall)) for multiple choice questions asked (De Lucia et al 2010;Gravino et al 2008). …”

Section: Empirical Studies On the Comprehensibility Of Uml Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comprehensibility of system models during test design: a controlled experiment comparing UML activity diagrams and state machines

Felderer

Herrmann²

2018

Software Qual J

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UML activity diagrams and state machines are both used for modeling system behavior from the user perspective and are frequently the basis for deriving system test cases. In practice, system test cases are often derived manually from UML activity diagrams or state machines. For this task, comprehensibility of respective models is essential and a relevant question for practice to support model selection and design, as well as subsequent test derivation. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to compare the comprehensibility of UML activity diagrams and state machines during manual test case derivation. We investigate the comprehensibility of UML activity diagrams and state machines in a controlled student experiment. Three measures for comprehensibility have been investigated: (1) the self-assessed comprehensibility, (2) the actual comprehensibility measured by the correctness of answers to comprehensibility questions, and (3) the number of errors made during test case derivation. The experiment was performed and internally replicated with overall 84 participants divided into three groups at two institutions. Our experiment indicates that activity diagrams are more comprehensible but also more error-prone with regard to manual test case derivation and discusses how these results can improve system modeling and test case design.

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Section: Empirical Studies On the Comprehensibility Of Uml Modelsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Empirical Studies On the Comprehensibility Of Uml Modelsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Empirical Studies On the Comprehensibility Of Uml Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Comprehensibility of system models during test design: a controlled experiment comparing UML activity diagrams and state machines

Felderer

Herrmann²

2018

Software Qual J

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“…The size of our sample does not allow us to omit wrong answers. Another possibility is to compute an efficiency measure as combination of correctness of answers and response time (e.g., Otero & Dolado (2004)). However, it is not clear whether the use of such a measure may lead to falsely accept or reject a hypothesis, because there are several ways to define a measure.…”

Section: Internal Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Do background colors improve program comprehension in the #ifdef hell?

et al. 2012

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Software-product-line engineering aims at the development of variable and reusable software systems. In practice, software product lines are often implemented with preprocessors. Preprocessor directives are easy to use, and many mature tools are available for practitioners. However, preprocessor directives have been heavily criticized in academia and even referred to as "#ifdef hell", because they introduce threats to program comprehension and correctness. There are many voices that suggest to use other implementation techniques instead, but these voices ignore the fact that a transition from preprocessors to other languages and tools is tedious, erroneous, and expensive in practice. Instead, we and others propose to increase the readability of preprocessor directives by using background colors to highlight source code annotated with ifdef directives. In three controlled experiments with over 70 subjects in total, we evaluate whether and how background colors improve program comprehension in preprocessor-based implementations. Our results demonstrate that background colors have the potential to improve program This is the authors' version and intended for personal use only. Any other use may violate the copyright. comprehension, independently of size and programming language of the underlying product. Additionally, we found that subjects generally favor background colors. We integrate these and other findings in a tool called FeatureCommander, which facilitates program comprehension in practice and which can serve as a basis for further research.

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“…The work of Otero and Dolado for instance, looked into three UML diagrams types, namely sequence, collaboration, and state diagrams, and evaluated the semantic comprehension of the diagrams when used for different application domains [6]. A similar study comes from the work of Glezer et al They evaluated the comprehensibility of sequence and collaboration diagrams, and finally concluded that collaboration diagrams are easier to comprehend than sequence diagrams in real-time systems [7].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Impact of UML Modeling on Software Quality: An Industrial Case Study

Nugroho

Chaudron

2009

Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems

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Abstract. The contribution of formal modeling approaches in software development has always been a subject of debates. The proponents of model-driven development argue that big upfront designs although require substantial investment will payoff later in the implementation phase in terms of increased productivity and quality. On the other hand, software engineers who are not very keen on modeling perceive the activity as simply a waste of time and money without any real contribution to the final software product. Considering present advancement of modelbased software development in software industry, we are challenged to investigate the real contribution of modeling in software development. Therefore, in this paper we report on an empirical investigation on the impact of UML modeling on the quality of software system. In particular, we focus on defect density as a measure of software quality. Based on a significant industrial case study, we have found that the use of UML modeling potentially reduces defect density in software system.

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Evaluation of the comprehension of the dynamic modeling in UML

Cited by 32 publications

References 9 publications

Comprehensibility of system models during test design: a controlled experiment comparing UML activity diagrams and state machines

Comprehensibility of system models during test design: a controlled experiment comparing UML activity diagrams and state machines

Do background colors improve program comprehension in the #ifdef hell?

Evaluating the Impact of UML Modeling on Software Quality: An Industrial Case Study

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