Improving the quality of use case descriptions: empirical assessment of writing guidelines

Phalp, Keith; Vincent, Jonathan; Cox, Karl

doi:10.1007/s11219-007-9023-6

Cited by 36 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…Labels composed of verbs followed by objects are promoted in [26,45,46]. Comparable guidelines have been defined for use cases in requirements engineering [47]. The actual advantage in terms of clarity is demonstrated in an experiment, which contrasts verb-object labels with action-noun labels in process models from practice [11].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the refactoring of activity labels in business process models

Leopold

Smirnov

Mendling

2012

Information Systems

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Large corporations increasingly utilize business process models for documenting and redesigning their operations. The extent of such modeling initiatives with several hundred models and dozens of often hardly trained modelers calls for automated quality assurance. While formal properties of control flow can easily be checked by existing tools, there is a notable gap for checking the quality of the textual content of models, in particular, its activity labels. In this paper, we address the problem of activity label quality in business process models. We designed a technique for the recognition of labeling styles, and the automatic refactoring of labels with quality issues. More specifically, we developed a parsing algorithm that is able to deal with the shortness of activity labels, which integrates natural language tools like WordNet and the Stanford Parser. Using three business process model collections from practice with differing labeling style distributions, we demonstrate the applicability of our technique. In comparison to a straightforward application of standard natural language tools, our technique provides much more stable results. As an outcome, the technique shifts the boundary of process model quality issues that can be checked automatically from syntactic to semantic aspects.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the refactoring of activity labels in business process models

Leopold

Smirnov

Mendling

2012

Information Systems

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“…This convention is similar to a style that is advocated in guidelines that support the creation of understandable use case descriptions, a widely accepted requirements tool in object-oriented software engineering [27,28]. We will refer to this labeling style of activities as the verb-object style.…”

Section: Labeling Styles In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Activity labeling in process modeling: Empirical insights and recommendations

Mendling

Reijers

Recker

2010

Information Systems

209

142

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a b s t r a c tFew studies have investigated the factors contributing to the successful practice of process modeling. In particular, studies that contribute to the act of developing process models that facilitate communication and understanding are scarce. Although the value of process models is not only dependent on the choice of graphical constructs but also on their annotation with textual labels, there has been hardly any work on the quality of these labels. Accordingly, the research presented in this paper examines activity labeling practices in process modeling. Based on empirical data from process modeling practice, we identify and discuss different labeling styles and their use in process modeling praxis. We perform a grammatical analysis of these styles and use data from an experiment with process modelers to examine a range of hypotheses about the usability of the different styles. Based on our findings, we suggest specific programs of research towards better tool support for labeling practices. Our work contributes to the emerging stream of research investigating the practice of process modeling and thereby contributes to the overall body of knowledge about conceptual modeling quality.

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“…It appears that subjects are less at ease with these notations and are more likely to detect errors in the diagrams. There have also been experiments by Cox and Phalp on applying conventions and styles to textual use cases [3] [15]. The results showed that their impact on quality is not always obvious and in an experiment comparing two guideline sets, the leaner one performed as well as the other.…”

Section: Examples Of Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Definitions and approaches to model quality in model-based software development – A review of literature

Mohagheghi

Dehlen

Neple

2009

Information and Software Technology

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ABSTRACT. More attention is paid to the quality of models along with the growing importance of modelling in software development. We performed a systematic review of studies discussing model quality published since 2000 to identify what model quality means and how it can be improved. From forty studies covered in the review, six model quality goals were identified; i.e., correctness, completeness, consistency, comprehensibility, confinement and changeability. We further present six practices proposed for developing high-quality models together with examples of empirical evidence. The contributions of the article are identifying and classifying definitions of model quality and identifying gaps for future research.

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Improving the quality of use case descriptions: empirical assessment of writing guidelines

Cited by 36 publications

References 17 publications

On the refactoring of activity labels in business process models

On the refactoring of activity labels in business process models

Activity labeling in process modeling: Empirical insights and recommendations

Definitions and approaches to model quality in model-based software development – A review of literature

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