An Approach for the Empirical Validation of Software Complexity Measures

Software metrics are widely accepted tools to control and assure software quality. A large number of software metrics with a variety of content can be found in the literature; however most of them are not adopted in industry as they are seen as irrelevant to needs, as they are unsupported, and the major reason behind this is due to improper empirical validation. This paper tries to identify possible root causes for the improper empirical validation of the software metrics. A practical model for the empirical validation of software metrics is proposed along with root causes. The model is validated by applying it to recently proposed and well known metrics

Mediating Cognitive Transformation with VR 3D Sketching during Conceptual Architectural Design Process

Communications for information synchronization during the conceptual design phase require designers to employ more intuitive digital design tools. This paper presents findings of a feasibility study for using VR 3D sketching interface in order to replace current non-intuitive CAD tools. We used a sequential mixed method research methodology including a qualitative case study and a cognitive-based quantitative protocol analysis experiment. Foremost, the case study research was conducted in order to understand how novice designers make intuitive decisions. The case study documented the failure of conventional sketching methods in articulating complicated design ideas and shortcomings of current CAD tools in intuitive ideation. The case study’s findings then became the theoretical foundations for testing the feasibility of using VR 3D sketching interface during design. The latter phase of study evaluated the designers’ spatial cognition and collaboration at six different levels: “physical-actions”, “perceptualac ons”, “functional-actions”, “conceptual-actions”, “cognitive synchronizations”, and “gestures”. The results and confirmed hypotheses showed that the utilized tangible 3D sketching interface improved novice designers’ cognitive and collaborative design activities. In summary this paper presents the influences of current external representation tools on designers’ cognition and collaboration as well as providing the necessary theoretical foundations for implementing VR 3D sketching interface. It contributes towards transforming conceptual architectural design phase from analogue to digital by proposing a new VR design interface. The paper proposes this transformation to fill in the existing gap between analogue conceptual architectural design process and remaining digital engineering parts of building design process hence expediting digital design process

Enablers and Impediments for Collaborative Research in Software Testing: An Empirical Exploration

When it comes to industrial organizations, current collaboration efforts in software engineering research are very often kept in-house, depriving these organizations off the skills necessary to build independent collaborative research. The current trend, towards empirical software engineering research, requires certain standards to be established which would guide these collaborative efforts in creating a strong partnership that promotes independent, evidence-based, software engineering research. This paper examines key enabling factors for an efficient and effective industry-academia collaboration in the software testing domain. A major finding of the research was that while technology is a strong enabler to better collaboration, it must be complemented with industrial openness to disclose research results and the use of a dedicated tooling platform. We use as an example an automated test generation approach that has been developed in the last two years collaboratively with Bombardier Transportation AB in Sweden

What influences the speed of prototyping? An empirical investigation of twenty software startups

It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups. In this study, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty European software startups. The results are two folds, firstly we propose a prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2) team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To speed up a startups progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototypingComment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version can be accessed at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_2, XP2017, Cologne, German

Preliminary Results in a Multi-site Empirical Study on Cross-organizational ERP Size and Effort Estimation

This paper reports on initial findings in an empirical study carried out with representatives of two ERP vendors, six ERP adopting organizations, four ERP implementation consulting companies, and two ERP research and advisory services firms. Our study’s goal was to gain understanding of the state-of-the practice in size and effort estimation of cross-organizational ERP projects. Based on key size and effort estimation challenges identified in a previously published literature survey, we explored some difficulties, fallacies and pitfalls these organizations face. We focused on collecting empirical evidence from the participating ERP market players to assess specific facts about the state-of-the-art ERP size and effort estimation practices. Our study adopted a qualitative research method based on an asynchronous online focus group

The Scalability-Efficiency/Maintainability-Portability Trade-off in Simulation Software Engineering: Examples and a Preliminary Systematic Literature Review

Large-scale simulations play a central role in science and the industry. Several challenges occur when building simulation software, because simulations require complex software developed in a dynamic construction process. That is why simulation software engineering (SSE) is emerging lately as a research focus. The dichotomous trade-off between scalability and efficiency (SE) on the one hand and maintainability and portability (MP) on the other hand is one of the core challenges. We report on the SE/MP trade-off in the context of an ongoing systematic literature review (SLR). After characterizing the issue of the SE/MP trade-off using two examples from our own research, we (1) review the 33 identified articles that assess the trade-off, (2) summarize the proposed solutions for the trade-off, and (3) discuss the findings for SSE and future work. Overall, we see evidence for the SE/MP trade-off and first solution approaches. However, a strong empirical foundation has yet to be established; general quantitative metrics and methods supporting software developers in addressing the trade-off have to be developed. We foresee considerable future work in SSE across scientific communities.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for presentation at the Fourth International Workshop on Software Engineering for High Performance Computing in Computational Science and Engineering (SEHPCCSE 2016

Designing as Construction of Representations: A Dynamic Viewpoint in Cognitive Design Research

This article presents a cognitively oriented viewpoint on design. It focuses on cognitive, dynamic aspects of real design, i.e., the actual cognitive activity implemented by designers during their work on professional design projects. Rather than conceiving de-signing as problem solving - Simon's symbolic information processing (SIP) approach - or as a reflective practice or some other form of situated activity - the situativity (SIT) approach - we consider that, from a cognitive viewpoint, designing is most appropriately characterised as a construction of representations. After a critical discussion of the SIP and SIT approaches to design, we present our view-point. This presentation concerns the evolving nature of representations regarding levels of abstraction and degrees of precision, the function of external representations, and specific qualities of representation in collective design. Designing is described at three levels: the organisation of the activity, its strategies, and its design-representation construction activities (different ways to generate, trans-form, and evaluate representations). Even if we adopt a "generic design" stance, we claim that design can take different forms depending on the nature of the artefact, and we propose some candidates for dimensions that allow a distinction to be made between these forms of design. We discuss the potential specificity of HCI design, and the lack of cognitive design research occupied with the quality of design. We close our discussion of representational structures and activities by an outline of some directions regarding their functional linkages