Graphical Entity Relationship Models: Towards a More User Understandable Representation of Data

The Entity Relationship Model was originally proposed as a way of representing user requirements in a way that non-technical users could understand. However anecdotal evidence and empirical studies both indicate that users have major difficulties understanding Entity Relationship models in practice. This paper proposes a number of modifications to the Entity Relationship Model to make it more understandable to business users. These include the use of an enhanced graphical representation, levels of abstraction and the use of business scenarios. This method has been used successfully in a wide range of organisational contexts, and has been particularly successful at the corporate level, where understandability of models has been found to be a major barrier to their acceptance and use. In addition, an automated tool has been developed to support the technique, which allows users to interact directly with the model and understand how it works through the use of animation.

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