Assessing the impact of hierarchy on model understandability --- a cognitive perspective

Authors:
Stefan Zugal;Jakob Pinggera;Barbara Weber;Jan Mendling;Hajo A. Reijers
Affiliations:
University of Innsbruck, Austria;University of Innsbruck, Austria;University of Innsbruck, Austria;Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany;Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Venue:
MODELS'11 Proceedings of the 2011th international conference on Models in Software Engineering
Year:
2011

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Abstract

Modularity is a widely advocated strategy for handling complexity in conceptual models. Nevertheless, a systematic literature review revealed that it is not yet entirely clear under which circumstances modularity is most beneficial. Quite the contrary, empirical findings are contradictory, some authors even show that modularity can lead to decreased model understandability. In this work, we draw on insights from cognitive psychology to develop a framework for assessing the impact of hierarchy on model understandability. In particular, we identify abstraction and the split-attention effect as two opposing forces that presumably mediate the influence of modularity. Based on our framework, we describe an approach to estimate the impact of modularization on understandability and discuss implications for experiments investigating the impact of modularization on conceptual models.