9 research outputs found
A Multiple Views Model for Variability Management in Software Product Lines
\With current trends towards moving variability
from hardware to software, and given the increasing
desire to postpone design decisions as much as is
economically feasible, managing the variability from
requirements elicitation to implementation is
becoming a primary business requirement in the
product line process. Nowadays, a medium size
software system may encompass hundreds if not
thousands of variability points introducing a new level
of complexity that current techniques struggle to
manage. In this paper, we present a new approach to
variability management by introducing a multiple
views model (4VM) where each view caters for specific
set of concerns that relate to a particular group of
stakeholders
A Scalable Multiple Perspective Variability Management CASE Tool
One of the main challenges in variability
management is the visualization and management of industry
size variability models. In this work, we introduce our CASE
tool MUSA that uses a multiple perspective approach to
variability modeling and is implemented using state-of-the-art
multi-touch interfaces. This gives it the power and flexibility to
create and manage large-scale variability models
A NUI Based Multiple Perspective Variability Modelling CASE Tool
With current trends towards moving variability from hardware to
software, and given the increasing desire to postpone design decisions as much
as is economically feasible, managing the variability from requirements
elicitation to implementation is becoming a primary business requirement in the
product line engineering process. One of the main challenges in variability
management is the visualization and management of industry size variability
models. In this demonstration, we introduce our CASE tool, MUSA. MUSA is
designed around our work on multiple perspective variability modeling and is
implemented using the state-of-the-art in NUI, multi-touch interfaces, giving it
the power and flexibility to create and manage large-scale variability models
with relative ease
Visualizing Variability Models Using Hyperbolic Trees
Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) has emerged in recent
years as a viable way to maximize reuse when designing a family of related
products. One of the main tasks conducted during the SPLE process is
Variability Management (VM). VM is about identifying commonality among
the different products being developed while capturing and cataloging
variability. In real-life projects, VM models tend to encompass a very large
number of variants reaching in many projects the order of thousands.
Visualizing these models has been a major challenge for tool developers. In this
work, we present our MUSA CASE tool which uses hyperbolic trees for
representing VM models and supports gesture based interaction (using multi-touch interfaces). The tool has been successfully used to develop a large scale
case study
Model-based systems engineering with requirements variability for embedded real-time systems
Product Line Engineering (PLE) offers the benefits of reducing costs and time to market by reusing requirements and components. Current PLE methods, however, mainly focus on the software aspects and are lacking in support for many system level concerns like physical and non-functional require-ments (Quality of Service attributes) that play an important role in the development of Embedded Real-Time Systems (RTS). This paper proposes a new method to support a combination of variability modelling (a key feature of PLE) and model-based requirement engineering (in SysML) for Embedded RTS. It provides four main contributions: 1. it extends the Orthogonal Variability Model (OVM) to support the separation of function-al, physical and non-functional variability; 2. it proposes a mechanism for the evolution of variability; 3. stakeholders' specifications for variable requirements are extended by the proposed approach; 4. it increases the consistency of system models by directly using SysML Activity Diagrams and Block Definition Diagrams as a base model for refining variability models for requirement representation. The proposed method is illustrated by an Aircraft Engine Control System case study. © 2015 IEEE
Usability of Web Browsers for Multi-touch Platforms
Multi-touch interface is an improvement within the existing touch screen technology, which allows the user to operate the electronic visual display with finger gestures. This work examines how good current web browsers are positioned to avail of the next generation HCI, currently dubbed Natural User Interfaces which are largely multi-touch interfaces at this point in time
A Scalable Design Framework for Variability Management in Large-Scale Software Product Lines
Variability management is one of the major challenges in software product line adoption, since it needs to be efficiently managed at various levels of the software product line development process (e.g., requirement analysis, design, implementation, etc.).
One of the main challenges within variability management is the handling and effective visualization of large-scale (industry-size) models, which in many projects, can reach the order of thousands, along with the dependency relationships that exist among them. These have raised many concerns regarding the scalability of current variability management tools and techniques and their lack of industrial adoption.
To address the scalability issues, this work employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to identify the reasons behind the limited scalability of existing variability management tools and techniques. In addition to producing a comprehensive catalogue of existing tools, the outcome form this stage helped understand the major limitations of existing tools.
Based on the findings, a novel approach was created for managing variability that employed two main principles for supporting scalability. First, the separation-of-concerns principle was employed by creating multiple views of variability models to alleviate information overload. Second, hyperbolic trees were used to visualise models (compared to Euclidian space trees traditionally used). The result was an approach that can represent models encompassing hundreds of variability points and complex relationships. These concepts were demonstrated by implementing them in an existing variability management tool and using it to model a real-life product line with over a thousand variability points.
Finally, in order to assess the work, an evaluation framework was designed based on various established usability assessment best practices and standards. The framework was then used with several case studies to benchmark the performance of this work against other existing tools