Software engineering whispers: The effect of textual vs. graphical software design descriptions on software design communication

Abstract

Context Software engineering is a social and collaborative activity. Communicating and sharing knowledge between software developers requires much effort. Hence, the quality of communication plays an important role in influencing project success. To better understand the effect of communication on project success, more in-depth empirical studies investigating this phenomenon are needed. Objective We investigate the effect of using a graphical versus textual design description on co-located software design communication. Method Therefore, we conducted a family of experiments involving a mix of 240 software engineering students from four universities. We examined how different design representations (i.e., graphical vs. textual) affect the ability to Explain, Understand, Recall, and Actively Communicate knowledge. Results We found that the graphical design description is better than the textual in promoting Active Discussion between developers and improving the Recall of design details. Furthermore, compared to its unaltered version, a well-organized and motivated textual design description–that is used for the same amount of time–enhances the recall of design details and increases the amount of active discussions at the cost of reducing the perceived quality of explaining.

Live process modeling with the BPMN Sketch Miner

“…Researchers have been long discussing whether textual or graphical model representations are better [19,23,26,34,46,48,54]. Many empirical studies comparing graphical versus textual representations have been carried out in the past concerning, e.g., COBOL data structure documentation [38], requirement models [40,57], UML model maintenance [34,46], or declarative [24] and imperative [6] business process models. Sharafi et al [57] performed an eye-tracking experiment with 28 participants to study their efficiency and accuracy with requirement comprehension tasks.…”

"Is My Mic On?" Preparing SE Students for Collaborative Remote Work and Hybrid Team Communication

“…Customer software requirements are often vague and unhelpful, but by acquiring the skills to communicate effectively through coursework, students will be better prepared to elicit the necessary information from customers [19]. Previous studies found that the quality that developers communicated with stakeholders influenced overall customer satisfaction with the developed product [20]- [22]. Anewalt et al surveyed 113 randomly-selected SE alumni from the University of Mary Washington and found that they preferred incorporating additional communication courses in the university's computer science degree plan, based on their early-career communication experiences, to increase students' oral communication skills [18].…”

Assessing the Usefulness of a Visual Programming IDE for Large-Scale Automation Software

“…Visual programming languages can improve the communication and collaboration between software developers. In comparison to textual languages, visual representations can stimulate more active discussions and improve the memorability of design details [1]. Additionally, the subjective satisfaction of developers can be higher for visual notations, as Meliá et al [2] showed in their study in which students performed maintenance tasks on software models in both a textual and a visual notation.…”