An Empirical Study on Using Stereotypes to Improve Understanding of UML Models
| Document type: | Conference Papers |
|---|---|
| Peer reviewed: | Yes |
| Author(s): | Ludwik Kuzniarz, Miroslaw Staron, Claes Wohlin |
| Title: | An Empirical Study on Using Stereotypes to Improve Understanding of UML Models |
| Conference name: | Proceedings of 12th International Workshop on Program Comprehension |
| Year: | 2004 |
| Pagination: | 14-23 |
| ISI number: | 000222969700002 |
| Organization: | Blekinge Institute of Technology |
| Department: | School of Engineering - Dept. of Systems and Software Engineering (Sektionen för teknik – avd. för programvarusystem) School of Engineering S- 372 25 Ronneby +46 455 38 50 00 http://www.tek.bth.se/ |
| Authors e-mail: | Claes.Wohlin@bth.se |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Stereotypes were introduced into the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to provide means of customizing this visual, general purpose, object-oriented modeling language, for its usage in specific application domains. The primary purpose of stereotypes is to brand an existing model element with a specific semantics. In addition, stereotypes can also be used as notational shorthand. The paper elaborates on this role of stereotypes from the perspective of UML, clarifies the role and describes a controlled experiment aimed at evaluation of the role – in the context of model understanding. The results of the experiment support the claim that stereotypes with graphical icons for their representation play a significant role in comprehension of models and show the size of the improvement. |
| Subject: | Software Engineering\General |
