A qualitative assessment of the efficacy of UML diagrams as a form
of graphical documentation in aiding program understanding
S. Tilley, and S. Huang. SIGDOC '03: International Conference on Documentation, page 184--191. San Francisco, California, ACM Press, (October 2003)
DOI: 10.1145/944868.944908
Abstract
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.
%0 Conference Paper
%1 tilley03
%A Tilley, Scott
%A Huang, Shihong
%B SIGDOC '03: International Conference on Documentation
%C San Francisco, California
%D 2003
%I ACM Press
%K uml comprehension visualization
%P 184--191
%R 10.1145/944868.944908
%T A qualitative assessment of the efficacy of UML diagrams as a form
of graphical documentation in aiding program understanding
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/944868.944908
%X 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.
%@ 158113696X
@inproceedings{tilley03,
abstract = {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.},
added-at = {2006-09-18T06:26:07.000+0200},
address = {San Francisco, California},
author = {Tilley, Scott and Huang, Shihong},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/255067fe850173ba842a8d6a0eb7256a5/neilernst},
booktitle = {SIGDOC '03: International Conference on Documentation},
citeulike-article-id = {834002},
description = {Not previously uploaded},
doi = {10.1145/944868.944908},
interhash = {0f4158b10f9d91657f0aa3b0aebeb603},
intrahash = {55067fe850173ba842a8d6a0eb7256a5},
isbn = {158113696X},
keywords = {uml comprehension visualization},
month = {October},
pages = {184--191},
priority = {0},
publisher = {ACM Press},
timestamp = {2006-09-18T06:26:07.000+0200},
title = {A qualitative assessment of the efficacy of UML diagrams as a form
of graphical documentation in aiding program understanding},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/944868.944908},
year = 2003
}