Experimentally investigating the effectiveness and effort of modeling conventions for the UML

Modelers tend to exploit the various degrees of freedom provided by the UML. The lack of uniformity and the large amount of defects contained in UML models result in miscommunication between different readers. To prevent for these problems we propose modeling conventions, analogue to coding conventions for programming. This work reports on a controlled experiment to explore the effect of modeling conventions on defect density and modeling effort. 106 masters’ students participated over a six-weeks-period. Our results indicate that decreased defect density is attainable at the cost of increased effort when using modeling conventions, and moreover, that this trade-off is stressed if tool-support is provided. Additionally we report observations on the subjects’ adherence to and attitude towards modeling conventions. Our observations indicate that efficient integration of convention support in the modeling process, e.g. through training and seamless tool integration, forms a promising direction towards preventing defects.

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