Authors:
Martin Auer
;
Ludwig Meyer
and
Stefan Biffl
Affiliation:
Institute of Software Technology and Interactive Systems, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Keyword(s):
Usability measures, UML tools, user interface design, UML modeling.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
CASE Tools for System Development
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Modeling Concepts and Information Integration Tools
Abstract:
UML tools are used in three main ways: (1) to exploratively sketch key system components during initial project stages; (2) to manage large software systems by keeping design and implementation synchronized; and (3) to extensively document a system after implementation.
Professional tools cover (3) to some extent, and attempt to cover (2), but the vast number of languages, frameworks and deployment procedures makes those tasks all but impossible. By aiming at these two goals, tools must enforce formal UML language constructs more rigorously and thus become more complicated. They can become unsuitable for (1).
This paper looks at explorative modeling with the leading UML tool Rational Rose and the open-source sketching tool UMLet. We define usability measures, assess both tools’ performance for common UML design tasks, and comment on the consequences for the application of UML tools.