White Papers

A Qualitative Assessment of the Efficacy of UML Diagrams as a Form of Graphical Documentation in Aiding Program Understanding

Overview Graphical documentation is often characterized as an effective aid in program understanding. However, it is an open question exactly which types of graphical documentation are most suitable for which types of program understanding tasks (and in which specific usage contexts). The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the de facto standard for modeling modern software applications. This paper describes an experiment to assess the qualitative efficacy of UML diagrams in aiding program understanding. The experiment had participants analyze a series of UML diagrams and answer a detailed questionnaire concerning a hypothetical software system. Results from the experiment suggest that the UML's efficacy in support of program understanding is limited by factors such as ill-defined syntax and semantics, spatial layout, and domain knowledge.

Download White Paper

By downloading you agree to our Terms and Conditions. These include information regarding use of your personal data.

Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
File Format
PDF
Date Published
Dec 4, 2008
Format
White Papers
Topics
Graphics Applications, Programming Languages, UML

Similiar White Papers

Onion Graphs for Focus+Context Views of UML Class Diagrams

Onion Graphs for Focus+Context Views of UML Class Diagrams

The paper introduces the use of onion graphs as a focus+context technique for visualizing large UML class models. The fo

Publisher: Kent State University  |  Tags: context, open source

UML Models to CSP Models in MOMENT2-GT

UML Models to CSP Models in MOMENT2-GT

MOMENT2 is an algebraic model management framework that permits manipulating models in the Eclipse Modeling Framework (E

Publisher: University of Leicester  |  Tags: management

Agile Modeling With Mind Map and UML

Agile Modeling With Mind Map and UML

Requirement Gathering or Gathering User Stories (in Agile context) is always a challenging phase in software development

Publisher: Change Vision  |  Tags: software, software development

Association for Computing Machinery White Papers

Managing ETL Processes

Managing ETL Processes

ETL tools allow the definition of sometimes complex processes to extract, transform, and load heterogeneous data into a

Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery  |  Tags: data, data integration, data warehouse, management

GPS-Free Node Localization in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

GPS-Free Node Localization in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

An important problem in mobile ad-hoc wireless sensor networks is the localization of individual nodes, i.e., each node'

Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery  |  Tags: gps, infrastructure, network

A Black-Box Approach for Web Application SLA

A Black-Box Approach for Web Application SLA

Web servers nowadays have to cope with unprecedented amounts of workload, due to increasing popularity and complexity; i

Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery  |  Tags: applications, server

Load Balancing for Multimedia Streaming in Heterogeneous Peer-to-Peer Systems

Load Balancing for Multimedia Streaming in Heterogeneous Peer-to-Peer Systems

Multimedia streaming of mostly user generated content is an ongoing trend, not only since the upcoming of Last.fm and Yo

Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery  |  Tags: user generated, user generated content, youtube

Multiobjective Network Design for Realistic Traffic Models

Multiobjective Network Design for Realistic Traffic Models

Network topology design problems find application in several real life scenarios. However, most designs in the past eith

Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery  |  Tags: network, realistic