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How do modelers read UML diagrams?: preliminary results from an eye-tracking study

Published: 27 May 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Background: Conceptual diagrams are widely used. Previous research suggested layout quality, diagram size, and expertise level are relevant impact factors on understanding, while diagram type is not. Surprisingly little is known about how diagrams are read.
Objective: Eventually, we want to understand the cognitive processes of diagram and model understanding. In this paper, we study the behavior of modelers while reading UML diagrams in terms of reading strategies and how they affect diagram understanding.
Method: We conduct an eye tracking study with 28 participants, reusing diagrams and items from previous experiments. We record several objective and subjective performance indicators as well as eye movement and pupil dilation.
Results: We discover behavioral regularities and aggregate them into reading strategies which vary with expertise level and diagram type, but not with layout quality.
Conclusions: Modelers exhibit specific strategies of diagram understanding. Experts employ different strategies than novices, which explains performance differences irrespective of layout quality.

References

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A. Bojko. Eye Tracking - The User Experience: A Practical Guide to Research. Rosenfeld Media, 2013.
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Harald Störrle. On the Impact of Layout Quality to Unterstanding UML Diagrams. In Proc. IEEE Symp. Visual Lang, and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), pages 135--142. IEEE CS, 2011.
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Harald Störrle. On the Impact of Layout Quality to Unterstanding UML Diagrams: Diagram Type and Expertise. In Gennaro Costagliola and others, editors, Proc. IEEE Symp. Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), pages 195--202. IEEE CS, 2012.
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Harald Störrle. On the Impact of Layout Quality to Understanding UML Diagrams: Size Matters. In Jürgen Dingel and others, editors, Proc. 17th Intl. Conf. Model Driven Eng. Lang, and Syst. (MoDELS), number 8767 in LNCS, pages 518--534. Springer, 2014.
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Harald Störrle. How are Conceptual Models used in Industrial Software Development? A Descriptive Survey. In Emilia Mendes, Kai Petersen, and Steve Counsell, editors, Proc. 21st Intl. Conf. on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). ACM, 2017.
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Cited By

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  • (2020)REQUIREMENTS FOR DIAGRAMING IN THE DESIGN OF MENTAL HEALTH DELIVERY SERVICESProceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference10.1017/dsd.2020.1661(1959-1968)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2020

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cover image ACM Conferences
ICSE '18: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceeedings
May 2018
231 pages
ISBN:9781450356633
DOI:10.1145/3183440
  • Conference Chair:
  • Michel Chaudron,
  • General Chair:
  • Ivica Crnkovic,
  • Program Chairs:
  • Marsha Chechik,
  • Mark Harman
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Published: 27 May 2018

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  • (2020)REQUIREMENTS FOR DIAGRAMING IN THE DESIGN OF MENTAL HEALTH DELIVERY SERVICESProceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference10.1017/dsd.2020.1661(1959-1968)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2020

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