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This work presents the EUREQA approach for end-user development. The purpose of the tool is to narrow the cognitive gap between the end-user developer's mental model and the software model. The tool uses design patterns as building blocks allowing end-users to create UML class diagram models that capture their domain knowledge. The EUREQA tool hides from view the complexity of code thereby reducing the cognitive load on end-user developers. EUREQA makes non-functional quality issues a first-class concern allowing end-user developers to consider both functional and non-functional aspects of design alternatives. The tool uses visualization techniques to aid in non-functional quality assesment. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and assess the opportunities and challenges of EUREQA. A qualitative, pilot evaluation of EUREQA shows that the visualization techniques work well, whereas there are issues with the abstraction gap between the visualization and class diagram.

End-user development is a growing domain; however, few dedicated end-user development tools exist allowing end-users to incorporate their domain knowledge into software solutions. EUREQA is a design pattern driven UML class diagram modeling tool allowing end-user developers to create UML class diagram models reflecting their domain knowledge. The UML class diagram can be used as a basis for model-driven development. EUREQA was evaluated with 20 participants recording data through direct observation, screen recordings, the think-aloud protocol and semi-structured interviews. Half of the participants used EUREQA and the other half used the Microsoft Visio modeling tool. The authors found that EUREQA participants scored higher than Visio participants for this task and that skill had less effect on the EUREQA participants’ solutions. Specifically inexperienced EUREQA users struggled less when working with UML class diagram elements compared to Visio participants.

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