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Does the level of detail of UML diagrams affect the maintainability of source code?: a family of experiments

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Abstract

Although the UML is considered to be the de facto standard notation with which to model software, there is still resistance to model-based development. UML modeling is perceived to be expensive and not necessarily cost-effective. It is therefore important to collect empirical evidence concerning the conditions under which the use of UML makes a practical difference. The focus of this paper is to investigate whether and how the Level of Detail (LoD) of UML diagrams impacts on the performance of maintenance tasks in a model-centric approach. A family of experiments consisting of one controlled experiment and three replications has therefore been carried out with 81 students with different abilities and levels of experience from 3 countries (The Netherlands, Spain, and Italy). The analysis of the results of the experiments indicates that there is no strong statistical evidence as to the influence of different LoDs. The analysis suggests a slight tendency toward better results when using low LoD UML diagrams, especially if used for the modification of the source code, while a high LoD would appear to be helpful in understanding the system. The participants in our study also favored low LoD diagrams because they were perceived as easier to read. Although the participants expressed a preference for low LoD diagrams, no statistically significant conclusions can be drawn from the set of experiments. One important finding attained from this family of experiments was that the participants minimized or avoided the use of UML diagrams, regardless of their LoD. This effect was probably the result of using small software systems from well-known domains as experimental materials.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been funded by the following projects: GEODAS-BC (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional FEDER, TIN2012-37493-C03-01) and IMPACTUM (Consejería de Educación, Ciencia y Cultura de la Junta de Comunidades de Castilla La Mancha, y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional FEDER, PEII11-0330-4414).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ALARCOS Research Group, Department of Technologies and Information Systems, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Paseo de la Universidad 4, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Ana M. Fernández-Sáez & Marcela Genero

  2. Department of Informatics, University of Bari, Via E. Orabona 4, 70126, Bari, Italy

    Danilo Caivano

  3. SER&Practices s.r.l, Spin Off Company of the University of Bari, Via E. Orabona 4, 70126, Bari, Italy

    Danilo Caivano

  4. Joint Computer Science and Engineering Department of Chalmers, University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, SE-412 96, Gö̈teborg, Sweden

    Michel R. V. Chaudron

  5. Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Sciences, Leiden University, NielsBohrweg 1, 2333, CA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Ana M. Fernández-Sáez & Michel R. V. Chaudron

Authors
  1. Ana M. Fernández-Sáez
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  2. Marcela Genero
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  3. Danilo Caivano
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  4. Michel R. V. Chaudron
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ana M. Fernández-Sáez.

Additional information

Communicated by: Richard Paige

Appendix

Appendix

Fig. 16
figure 16

Example of a low LoD class diagram

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Fig. 17
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Example of a high LoD class diagram

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Fernández-Sáez, A.M., Genero, M., Caivano, D. et al. Does the level of detail of UML diagrams affect the maintainability of source code?: a family of experiments. Empir Software Eng 21, 212–259 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-014-9354-4

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