Abstract
Hierarchy has widely been recognized as a viable approach to deal with the complexity of conceptual models. For instance, in declarative business process models, hierarchy is realized by sub-processes. While technical implementations of declarative sub-processes exist, their application, semantics, and the resulting impact on understandability are less understood yet-this research gap is addressed in this work. More specifically, we discuss the semantics and the application of hierarchy and show how sub-processes enhance the expressiveness of declarative modeling languages. Then, we turn to the influence of hierarchy on the understandability of declarative process models. In particular, we present a cognitive-psychology-based framework that allows to assess the impact of hierarchy on the understandability of a declarative process model. To empirically test the proposed framework, a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods is followed. While statistical tests provide numerical evidence, think-aloud protocols give insights into the reasoning processes taking place when reading declarative process models.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Software and Systems Modeling |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 3 |
Pages (from-to) | 1081-1103 |
Number of pages | 23 |
ISSN | 1619-1366 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Business process management
- Declarative business process models
- Modularization
- Understandability
- Cognitive psychology