The Impact of Interface Complexity on Failures : an Empirical Analysis and Implications for Tool Design

Information hiding is a cornerstone principle of modern software engineering. Interfaces are central to realizing the benefits of information hiding, but despite their widespread use, designing good interfaces is not a trivial activity. Particular design choices can have a significant detrimental effect on quality or development productivity. In this paper, we examine the relative impact of interface complexity on the failure proneness of source code files using data from two large-scale systems from two distinct software companies. Our analyses showed that increases in the complexity of interfaces are associated with increases the failure proneness of source code files. Building on our empirical results, we develop a set of implications for designing tools aimed at assisting developers to cope with the detrimental impact of interface complexity.

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