User guidance for creating precise and accessible property specifications

  • Authors:

  • Rachel L. Cobleigh;George S. Avrunin;Lori A. Clarke

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA;University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA;University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Foundations of software engineering
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Property specifications concisely describe aspects of what a system is supposed to do. No matter what notation is used to describe them, however, it is difficult to represent these properties correctly, since there are often subtle, but important, details that need to be considered. Propel aims to guide users through the process of creating properties that are both accessible and mathematically precise, by providing templates for commonly-occurring property patterns. These templates explicitly represent these subtle details as options. In this paper, we present a new representation of these templates, a Question Tree that asks users a hierarchical sequence of questions about their intended properties. The Question Tree representation is particularly useful for helping users select the appropriate template, but it also complements the finite-state automaton and disciplined natural language representations provided by Propel. We also report on some case studies and on an experimental evaluation of the understandability of the disciplined natural language representation.