Graphical representations are used to visualise, specify, and document software artifacts in all stages of software development process. In contrast with text, graphical representations are presented in two-dimensional form, which seems easy to process. However, few empirical studies investigated the efficiency of graphical representations vs. textual ones in modelling and presenting software requirements. Therefore, in this paper, we report the results of an eye-tracking experiment involving 28 participants to study the impact of structured textual vs. graphical representations on subjects' efficiency while performing requirement comprehension tasks. We measure subjects' efficiency in terms of the percentage of correct answers (accuracy) and of the time and effort spend to perform the tasks.We observe no statistically-significant difference in term of accuracy. However, our subjects spent more time and effort while working with the graphical representation although this extra time and...
An empirical study on the efficiency of graphical vs. textual representations in requirements comprehension / Sharafi, Z.; Marchetto, A.; Susi, A.; Antoniol, G.; Gueheneuc, Y. -G.. - (2013), pp. 33-42. ( 2013 21st International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2013 San Francisco, CA, usa 2013) [10.1109/ICPC.2013.6613831].
An empirical study on the efficiency of graphical vs. textual representations in requirements comprehension
Marchetto A.;
2013-01-01
Abstract
Graphical representations are used to visualise, specify, and document software artifacts in all stages of software development process. In contrast with text, graphical representations are presented in two-dimensional form, which seems easy to process. However, few empirical studies investigated the efficiency of graphical representations vs. textual ones in modelling and presenting software requirements. Therefore, in this paper, we report the results of an eye-tracking experiment involving 28 participants to study the impact of structured textual vs. graphical representations on subjects' efficiency while performing requirement comprehension tasks. We measure subjects' efficiency in terms of the percentage of correct answers (accuracy) and of the time and effort spend to perform the tasks.We observe no statistically-significant difference in term of accuracy. However, our subjects spent more time and effort while working with the graphical representation although this extra time and...I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione
