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Controlled Experiment on the Supportive Effect of Architectural Component Diagrams for Design Understanding of Novice Architects

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Book cover Software Architecture (ECSA 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 7957))

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Abstract

Today, architectural component models are often used as a central view of architecture descriptions. So far, however, only a very few rigorous empirical studies relating to the use of component models in architectural descriptions of software systems have been conducted. In this paper, we present the results of a controlled experiment regarding the supportive effect of architectural component diagrams for design understandability. In particular, the goal of the experiment was to determine whether architectural component diagrams, provided in addition to a non-trivial software system’s source code, have a supportive effect on the ability of novice architects to answer design and architecture related questions about that system. Our study provides initial evidence that architectural component diagrams have a supportive effect for understanding the software design and architecture, if a direct link from the component diagram’s elements to the problem that requires understanding can be made. If such a direct link cannot be made, we found evidence that it should not be assumed that architectural component diagrams help in design understanding, for instance only by providing a big picture view or some general kind of orientation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Group Software Architecture, University of Vienna, Austria

    Thomas Haitzer & Uwe Zdun

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  1. Thomas Haitzer
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  2. Uwe Zdun
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. LAAS, University of Toulouse, 31400, Toulouse, France

    Khalil Drira

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Haitzer, T., Zdun, U. (2013). Controlled Experiment on the Supportive Effect of Architectural Component Diagrams for Design Understanding of Novice Architects. In: Drira, K. (eds) Software Architecture. ECSA 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7957. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39031-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39031-9_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39030-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39031-9

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