Areas of interest (AOIs) are defined as an addition to UML diagrams: groups of elements of system architecture diagrams that share some common property. Some methods have been proposed to automatically draw AOIs on UML diagrams. However, it is not clear how users perceive the results of such methods as compared to human-drawn areas of interest. We present here a process of studying and improving the perceived quality of computer-drawn AOIs. We qualitatively evaluated how users perceive the quality of computer- and human-drawn AOIs, and used these results to improve an existing algorithm for drawing AOIs. Finally, we designed a quantitative comparison for AOI drawings and used it to show that our improved renderings are closer to human drawings than the original rendering algorithm results. The combined user evaluation, algorithmic improvements, and quantitative comparison support our claim of improving the perceived quality of AOIs rendered on UML diagrams.

Byelas, Heorhiy,

Telea, Alexandru,

English

Areas of interest (AOIs) are defined as groups of elements of system architecture diagrams that share some common property. Visualizing AOIs is a useful addition to plain diagrams, such as UML diagrams. Some methods have been proposed to automatically draw AOIs on UML diagrams. However, it is not clear whether actual users perceive the results of such methods to be better or worse as compared to human-drawn AOI, and what needs to be improved. We present here a process of studying and improving the perceived quality of computer-drawn AOI. For this, we conducted a qualitative evaluation that delivered insight in how users perceive the quality of computer-drawn AOIs as compared to hand-drawn diagrams. Following these results, we derived and implemented several improvements to an existing algorithm for computer-drawn AOIs. Next, we designed a distance metric to quantitatively compare different AOI drawings, and used this metric to show that our improved rendering algorithm creates drawings which are closer to (good) human drawings than the original rendering algorithm. We present here the results of the user evaluation, our improved algorithm for drawing AOIs, and the quantitative analysis performed to compare different drawings. The combined user evaluation, algorithmic improvements, and quantitative comparison method support our claim of having improved the perceived quality and understandability of AOI rendered on architecture diagrams. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p

Byelas, Heorhiy

Telea, Alexandru

Proceedings - University of Groningen

Towards realism in drawing areas of interest on architecture diagrams

Areas of interest (AOIs) are defined as groups of elements of system architecture diagrams that share some common property. Visualizing AOIs is a useful addition to plain diagrams, such as UML diagrams. Some methods have been proposed to automatically draw AOIs on UML diagrams. However, it is not clear whether actual users perceive the results of such methods to be better or worse as compared to human-drawn AOI, and what needs to be improved. We present here a process of studying and improving the perceived quality of computer-drawn AOI. For this, we conducted a qualitative evaluation that delivered insight in how users perceive the quality of computer-drawn AOIs as compared to hand-drawn diagrams. Following these results, we derived and implemented several improvements to an existing algorithm for computer-drawn AOIs. Next, we designed a distance metric to quantitatively compare different AOI drawings, and used this metric to show that our improved rendering algorithm creates drawings which are closer to (good) human drawings than the original rendering algorithm. We present here the results of the user evaluation, our improved algorithm for drawing AOIs, and the quantitative analysis performed to compare different drawings. The combined user evaluation, algorithmic improvements, and quantitative comparison method support our claim of having improved the perceived quality and understandability of AOI rendered on architecture diagrams.

University of Groningen Digital Archive

ARTS repository - University of Groningen

University of Groningen

Areas of interest (AOIs) are defined as an addition to UML diagrams: groups of elements of system architecture diagrams that share some common property. Some methods have been proposed to automatically draw AOIs on UML diagrams. However, it is not clear how users perceive the results of such methods as compared to human-drawn areas of interest. We present here a process of studying and improving the perceived quality of computer-drawn AOIs. We qualitatively evaluated how users perceive the quality of computer- and human-drawn AOIs, and used these results to improve an existing algorithm for drawing AOIs. Finally, we designed a quantitative comparison for AOI drawings and used it to show that our improved renderings are closer to human drawings than the original rendering algorithm results. The combined user evaluation, algorithmic improvements, and quantitative comparison support our claim of improving the perceived quality of AOIs rendered on UML diagrams