Capturing Location in Process Models: Comparing Small Adaptations of Mainstream Notation

For mobile and multi-channel information systems it is often relevant to model where something is supposed to take place. Traditional business process modeling notations seldom capture location. Examining if there might be any gain in extending mainstream modeling notations with the capture of location is an interesting research topic. This paper addresses this question both through an analytical comparison of various notation alternatives and two experiments investigating different ways of visualizing location. The results of the experiments indicate that the notation using color for distinguishing different places have advantage over textual annotations, whereas no significant difference was found between the use color and pattern fills when it came to the subjects' performance solving the experimental tasks.