Property-Based Software Engineering Measurement
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Software metrics (2nd ed.): a rigorous and practical approach
Software metrics (2nd ed.): a rigorous and practical approach
Investigating quality factors in object-oriented designs: an industrial case study
Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering
Building Knowledge through Families of Experiments
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Experimentation in software engineering: an introduction
Experimentation in software engineering: an introduction
Information modeling and method engineering: a psychological perspective
Journal of Database Management - Special issue on information modeling methods
Applying meta-analytical procedures to software engineering experiments
Journal of Systems and Software
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
The Confounding Effect of Class Size on the Validity of Object-Oriented Metrics
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Replicated Case Studies for Investigating Quality Factorsin Object-Oriented Designs
Empirical Software Engineering
An Empirical Investigation of an Object-Oriented Software System
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Preliminary guidelines for empirical research in software engineering
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Sizing Use Cases: How to Create a Standard Metrical Approach
OOIS '02 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Object-Oriented. Information Systems
Should Optional Properties Be Used in Conceptual Modelling? A Theory and Three Empirical Tests
Information Systems Research
Evaluating the Effect of Inheritance on the Modifiability of Object-Oriented Business Domain Models
CSMR '01 Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering
Replicated studies: building a body of knowledge about software reading techniques
Lecture notes on empirical software engineering
Model-Driven Development: A Metamodeling Foundation
IEEE Software
Symbolic Model Checking of UML Statechart Diagrams with an Integrated Approach
ECBS '04 Proceedings of the 11th IEEE International Conference and Workshop on Engineering of Computer-Based Systems
Assisting novice analysts in developing quality conceptual models with UML
Communications of the ACM - Services science
Metrics For Software Conceptual Models
Metrics For Software Conceptual Models
Managing software process measurement: A metamodel-based approach
Information Sciences: an International Journal
Assessing the Comprehension of UML Class Diagrams via Eye Tracking
ICPC '07 Proceedings of the 15th IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension
Building measure-based prediction models for UML class diagram maintainability
Empirical Software Engineering
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
No-redundant metrics for UML class diagram structural complexity
CAiSE'03 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Advanced information systems engineering
CAiSE'03 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Advanced information systems engineering
Measures for assessing dynamic complexity aspects of object-oriented conceptual schemes
ER'00 Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Conceptual modeling
Evaluating the effect of composite states on the understandability of UML statechart diagrams
MoDELS'05 Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems
An Experimental Comparison of Use Case Models Understanding by Novice and High Knowledge Users
Proceedings of the 2010 conference on New Trends in Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques: Proceedings of the 9th SoMeT_10
Evaluating requirements modeling methods based on user perceptions: A family of experiments
Information Sciences: an International Journal
Assessing the maintainability of software product line feature models using structural metrics
Software Quality Control
Complexity metrics for hierarchical state machines
SSBSE'11 Proceedings of the Third international conference on Search based software engineering
Information and Software Technology
MODELS'12 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems
Facilitating the transition from use case models to analysis models: Approach and experiments
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)
A metric towards evaluating understandability of state machines: An empirical study
Information and Software Technology
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The effectiveness of current software development strategies, such as Model-Driven Development (MDD), depends largely on the quality of their primary artefacts, i.e. software models. As the standard modelling language for software systems is the Unified Modelling Language (UML), quality assurance of UML models is a major research field in Computer Science. Understandability, i.e. a model's ability to be easily understood, is one model quality property that is currently heavily under investigation. In particular, researchers are searching for the factors that determine an UML model's understandability and are looking for ways to manipulate these factors. This paper presents an empirical study investigating the effect that structural complexity has on the understandability of one particular type of UML model, i.e. the statechart diagram. Based on data collected in a family of three experiments, we have identified three dimensions of structural complexity that affect understandability: (i) the size and control flow complexity of the statechart in terms of features such as the number of states, events, guards and state transitions; (ii) the actions that are performed when entering or leaving a state; (iii) the sequence of actions that is performed while staying within a state. Based on these structural complexity dimensions we have built an understandability prediction model using a regression technique that is specifically recommended for data obtained through a repeated measures design. Our test results show that each of the underlying structural complexity dimensions has a significant impact on the understandability of a statechart diagram.