NDLI: Experimental Analysis of Textual and Graphical Representations for Software Architecture Design

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Heijstek, W. Kuhne, T. Chaudron, M.R.V.
Copyright Year	2011
Abstract	Software architecture design documentation should communicate design decisions effectively. However, little is known about the way recipients respond to the different types of media used in documentation. We therefore conducted a controlled experiment to study whether visual or textual artifacts are more effective in communicating architecture software design decisions to software developers. Our participant group consisted of 47 participants from both industry and academia. Our results show that neither diagrams nor textual descriptions proved to be significantly more efficient in terms of communicating software architecture design decisions. Remarkably, participants who predominantly used text, scored significantly better, overall and with respect to topology related questions. Furthermore, surprisingly, diagrams were not able to alleviate the difficulties participants with a native language other than English had in extracting information from the documentation. In combination, these findings at the very least question the role of diagrams in software architecture documentation.
Starting Page	167
Ending Page	176
File Size	314440
Page Count	10
File Format	PDF
ISBN	9781457722035
ISSN	19386451
DOI	10.1109/ESEM.2011.25
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2011-09-22
Publisher Place	Canada
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	controlled experiment Software architecture global software development Unified modeling language Computer architecture Documentation Media software architecture design Software textual notation Data mining visual notation
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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