Quality in use of domain-specific languages

Barisic, Ankica; Amaral, Vasco; Goulão, Miguel; Barroca, Bruno

doi:10.1145/2089155.2089170

Cited by 38 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…It also gives an appropriate definition of DSL in order to be able to apply evaluation practices from Human-Computer interaction community and explains why existing practices for evaluating GPLs are not sufficient in this case. A case study on how to perform usability evaluation of DSL with real users by taking into consideration expert users, as well as novices is given in Barisic et al (2011b). While studies in Barisic et al (2011a, b) have similarities with our study in the way of handling the quality of DSL usability, the evaluation in our work specifically concentrates on the usability quality of MAS DSMLs instead of a general perspective.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All the patterns are followed by ongoing DSL example to give an idea of their application to real DSL cases. Barisic (2013) proposes a process of the development of DSL that includes a new role: Usability Engineer that is responsible to prepare and evaluate produced a solution in an agile way, by capturing language user's preferences. Following this approach, it is expected to identify a usability failure early in the development cycle and get the means to prepare a final evaluation that will give us meaningful and generalizable results.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A systematic approach to evaluating domain-specific modeling language environments for multi-agent systems

2015

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Multi-agent systems (MASs) include multiple interacting agents within an environment to provide a solution for complex systems that cannot be easily solved with individual agents or monolithic systems. However, the development of MASs is not trivial due to the various agent properties such as autonomy, responsiveness, and proactiveness, and the need for realization of the many different agent interactions. To support the development of MASs various domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) have been introduced that provide a declarative approach for modeling and supporting the generation of agent-based systems. To be effective, the proposed DSMLs need to meet the various stakeholder concerns and the related quality criteria for the corresponding MASs. Unfortunately, very often the evaluation of the DSML is completely missing or has been carried out in idiosyncratic approach. If the DSMLs are not well defined, then implicitly this will have an impact on the quality of the MASs. In this paper, we present an evaluation framework and systematic approach for assessing existing or newly defined DSMLs for MASs. The evaluation is specific for MAS DSMLs and targets both the language and the corresponding tools. To illustrate the evaluation approach, we first present SEA_ML, which is a model-driven MAS DSML for supporting the modeling and generation of agentbased systems. The evaluation of SEA_ML is based on a multi-case study research approach and provides both qualitative evaluation and quantitative analysis. We report on the lessons learned considering the adoption of the evaluation approach as well as the SEA_ML for supporting the generation of agent-based systems.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic approach to evaluating domain-specific modeling language environments for multi-agent systems

2015

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“…It also gives classification of users, categorizing them by identification of their specific requirements. The validation of the language through usability evaluation tests is included [6].…”

Section: Physicist's Easy Analysis Tool For High Energy Physicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Usability of Domain-Specific Languages

Barisic

Amaral

Goulão

et al. 2014

Software Design and Development

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For years the development of software artifacts was the sole domain of developers and project managers. However, experience has taught us that the Users play a very important role in software development and construction. On Domain Specific Languages the inclusion of the domain experts directly in the development cycle is a very important characteristic, as they have often an important role in making and constraining the domain of the language.DSLs are credited with increased productivity and ease of use, but this fact is hardly ever proven. Moreover, usability tests are frequently only performed at the final stages of the project when changes have a significant impact on the budget. To help prevent this, in this paper we present a pattern language for evaluating the usability of DSLs. Our patterns can help show how to use an iterative usability validation development strategy to produce DSLs that can achieve a high degree of usability.

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“…model) that describes the allowed terms and how to compose them into the sentences involved in a particular human-computer communication. Examples of UIs range from compilers to command-shell and graphical applications, and in each of those examples we can deduce the human-computer (H/C) language that is being used to perform that communication [29]. The general goal for HCI is that "it should increase efficiency of humans performing their duties within a computation infrastructure, without extra organizational costs, inconveniences, dangers and dissatisfaction, as well as undesirable impacts on the environment during long periods of learning, or maintenance, among others" [18].…”

Section: State-of-the-artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We propose a systematic approach based on UIs experimental validation techniques to assess the impact of the introduction of DSLs on the productivity of its end users. To illustrate this evaluation approach we have presented a case study of a DSL for High Energy Physics [29].…”

Section: B Context-dependent Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usability Evaluation of Domain-Specific Languages

Bariic

Amaral

Goulão

2012

2012 Eighth International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology

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Abstract-Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) are claimed to bring important productivity improvements to developers, when compared to General-Purpose Languages (GPLs). The increased Usability is regarded as one of the key benefits of DSLs when compared to GPLs, and has an important impact on the achieved productivity of the DSL users. So, it is essential to build in good usability while developing the DSL. The purpose of this proposal is to contribute to the systematic activity of Software Language Engineering by focusing on the issue of the Usability evaluation of DSLs. Usability evaluation is often skipped, relaxed, or at least omitted from papers reporting development of DSLs. We argue that a systematic approach based on User Interface experimental validation techniques should be used to assess the impact of new DSLs. For that purpose, we propose to merge common Usability evaluation processes with the DSL development process. In order to provide reliable metrics and tools we should reuse and identify good practices that exist in Human-Computer Interaction community.

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Quality in use of domain-specific languages

Cited by 38 publications

References 12 publications

A systematic approach to evaluating domain-specific modeling language environments for multi-agent systems

A systematic approach to evaluating domain-specific modeling language environments for multi-agent systems

Evaluating the Usability of Domain-Specific Languages

Usability Evaluation of Domain-Specific Languages

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