Experiments on Influence of Construal Level During Process Modeling

Process Models have become an important element for the specification of individual procedures in an organization. An incorrect or incomplete model leads to risks or even losses. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that process models represent corresponding procedures as well as possible. It is well known that granularity of process models depends on various factors that must be considered. In this regard, an often overlooked and not considered factor is the psychological distance. The purpose of this thesis is to introduce the Construal Level Theory and their influence on the process of process modeling. In this context, an important factor that apparently affects the granularity of process models is the psychological distance, which is part of the Construal Level Theory. To confirm this assumption, an experiment is carried out. The results indicate that psychological distance affects process modeling as well as resulting process models. In general, lower psychological distance leads to more detailed process models. However, further research is required to investigate the influence of psychological distance in more detail

Influence of Psychological Distance on Process Modeling: A Gamification Approach

Nowadays, Business Process Management (BPM) has progressed significantly and established itself as an important management concept for enterprises. For creating efficient and effective business processes enterprises have given process models a high priority. A well-documented business process is intended not only to describe a procedure in detail, but serves as a foundation for further actions such as process automation, improving process performance, and the identification of potential consequences as well as the quickness to respond for changes. To this end, it is important to ensure that process models represent the corresponding real world business processes as accurately as possible. In turn, a not proper described business process may lead to ineffectiveness, costs, and even losses. Hence, a focus is set on the quality, granularity as well as structure of process models. By now, numerous guidelines exist for creating correct and sound process models in respect to their quality, granularity, and resulting structure. However, hardly research addresses cognitive aspects when creating process models. Thereby, cognitive aspects are of particular importance for creating and understanding process models. This thesis contributes insights from a controlled experiment investigating the influence of psychological distance on the process of process modeling. More precisely, the effects of social distance of a process designer to the modeled domain has on the creation of process models are evaluated. In this context, the recent and emerging trend of gamification is applied. Therefore, gamification in a 3D virtual world is used to enhance the effects of social distance and for a better reflection of a real world problem. The final results obtained from the experiment do not agree with the theory. In particular, significant differences between low and high social distance with respect to process model quality, granularity, and structure are observed but are contrary to the stated goal of the experiment. Hence, the findings underline the importance of understanding the effects of cognitive aspects on the process of process modeling. However, the results may provide valuable incitements for enterprises to compose adequate teams for creating or optimizing business process models

Considering Social Distance as an Influence Factor in the Process of Process Modeling

Enterprise repositories comprise numerous business process models either created by in-house domain experts or external business analysts. To enable a widespread use of these process models, high model quality (e.g., soundness) as well as a sufficient level of granularity are crucial. Moreover, they shall reflect the actual business processes properly. Existing modeling guidelines target at creating correct and sound process models, whereas there is only little work dealing with cognitive issues influencing model creation by process designers. This paper addresses this gap and presents a controlled experiment investigating the construal level theory in the context of process modeling. In particular, we investigate the influence the social distance of a process designer to the modeled domain has on the creation of process models. For this purpose, we adopt and apply a gamification approach, which enables us to show significant differences between low and high social distance with respect to the quality, granularity, and structure of the created process models. The results obtained give insights into how enterprises shall compose teams for creating and evolving process models

Eye Tracking Experiments on Process Model Comprehension: Lessons Learned

For documenting business processes, there exists a plethora of process modeling languages. In this context, graphical process models are used to enhance the process comprehensibility of the stakeholders involved. The large number of available modeling languages, however, aggravates process model comprehension and increases the knowledge gap between domain and modeling experts. Upon this, one major challenge is to identify factors fostering the comprehension of process models. This paper discusses the experiences we gathered with the use of eye tracking in experiments on process model comprehension and the lessons learned in this context. The objective of the experiments was to study the comprehension of process models expressed in terms of four different modeling languages (i.e., BPMN, eGantt, EPC, and Petri Net). This paper further provides recommendations along nine identified categories that can foster related experiments on process model comprehension

How Social Distance of Process Designers Affects the Process of Process Modeling: Insights From a Controlled Experiment

The increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAISs) by enterprises has resulted in large process model collections. Usually, process models are created either by in-house domain experts or external consultants. Thereby, high model quality is crucial, i.e., process models should be syntactically correct and sound, and also reflect the real business processes properly. While numerous guidelines exist for creating correct and sound process models, there is only little work dealing with cognitive aspects affecting process modeling. This paper addresses this gap and presents a controlled experiment using construal level theory. We investigate the influence the social distance of a process designer to the modeled domain has on the creation of process models. In particular, we are able to show significant differences between high and low social distance in respect to model quality and granularity. The results may help enterprises to compose adequate teams for creating or optimizing business process models

DyVProMo - A Lightweight Web-Based Tool for the Dynamic Visualization of Additional Information in Business Process Models

Business process models represent detailed informa�tion regarding the documentation, optimization, and automation of organizational processes. With an increasing level of detail,such models become rapidly complex, thus hindering their correct comprehension (i.e., both, the efficiency and accuracy of understanding decrease). Furthermore, once a process model is created, the view on it and the respective level of detail remains rigid for all stakeholders. However, a process model may contain information, which is less relevant for certain stakeholders (e.g.,domain experts). Consequently, the comprehension of process models becomes more difficult, as all information in a model needs to be read. Existing modeling systems do not offer the functionality to dynamically change the level of detail of a process model according to the stakeholders’ preferences. To address this issue, the work at hand presents the Dynamic Visualization of Process Models (DyVProMo), a lightweight web-based tool that enables the dynamic visualization of information in process models expressed in terms of the Business Process Model and Notation 2.0

Towards a Conceptual Framework Fostering Process Comprehension in Healthcare

Despite the widespread use of process models in healthcare organizations, there are many unresolved issues regarding the reading and comprehension of these models by domain experts. This is aggravated by the fact that there exists a plethora of process modeling languages for the graphical do-cumentation of processes, which are often not used consistently for various reasons. Hence, the identification of those factors fostering the comprehension of process models becomes crucial. We have developed a conceptual framework incorporating measurements and theories from cognitive neuroscience and psychology to unravel factors fostering the comprehension of process models within organizations. We believe that a better comprehension of process models will enhance the support of healthcare processes significantly

Cognitive Insights into Business Process Model Comprehension: Preliminary Results for Experienced and Inexperienced Individuals

Process modeling constitutes a fundamental task in the context of process-aware information systems. Besides process model creation, the reading and understanding of process models is of utmost importance. To better understand the latter, we have developed a conceptual framework focusing on the comprehension of business process models. By adopting concepts from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, the paper presents initial results from a series of eye tracking experiments on process model comprehension. The results indicate that experiences with process modeling have an influence on overall model comprehension. In turn, with increasing process model complexity, individuals with either no or advanced expertise in process modeling do not significantly differ with respect to process model comprehension. The results further indicate that both groups face similar challenges in reading and comprehending process models. The conceptual framework takes these results into account and provides the basis for the further experiments

A Mobile Assessment Tool for Collecting Data in Large-Scale Educational Studies

Abstract Conducting scientific studies is an often frustrating and tedious task. To minimize the usual problems, such as lack of concentration or willingness to participate, and instead promote interest in the study, a smart mobile device assessment tool was developed. The tablet-based assessment tool offers a wide range of visual tasks that can be employed when conducting studies utilizing the European Framework of Visual Literacy (ENViL). Furthermore, the assessment tool is highly configurable in the field using a centralized server and spreadsheet-based configuration files, thereby ensuring that no programming language is required to adapt the tasks on the mobile devices participating in the study. Finally, the presented framework and architecture are completely cross-platform and cross-device and can be re-used and extended for any number of similar studies and tasks

The Repercussions of Business Process Modeling Notations on Mental Load and Mental Effort

Over the last decade, plenty business process modeling notations emerged for the documentation of business processes in enterprises. During the learning of a modeling notation, an individual is confronted with a cognitive load that has an impact on the comprehension of a notation with its underlying formalisms and concepts. To address the cognitive load, this paper presents the results from an exploratory study, in which a sample of 94 participants, divided into novices, intermediates, and experts, needed to assess process models expressed in terms of eight different process modeling notations, i.e., BPMN 2.0, Declarative Process Modeling, eGantt Charts, EPCs, Flow Charts, IDEF3, Petri Nets, and UML Activity Diagrams. The study focus was set on the subjective comprehensibility and accessibility of process models reflecting participant's cognitive load (i.e., mental load and mental effort). Based on the cognitive load, a factor reflecting the mental difficulty for comprehending process models in different modeling notations was derived. The results indicate that established modeling notations from industry (e.g., BPMN) should be the first choice for enterprises when striving for process management. Moreover, study insights may be used to determine which modeling notations should be taught for an introduction in process modeling or which notation is useful to teach and train process modelers or analysts. \keywords{Business Process Modeling Notations, Cognitive Load, Mental Load, Mental Effort, Human-centered Desig