Using EUREQA for End-User UML Model Development through Design Patterns
Paul G. Austrem · Journal of Software · 2011
This work presents the EUREQA approach for end-user development. The purpose of the tool is to narrow the cognitive gap between the end-user developer's mental model and the software model. The tool uses design patterns as building blocks allowing end-users to create UML class diagram models that capture their domain knowledge. The EUREQA tool hides from view the complexity of code thereby reducing the cognitive load on end-user developers. EUREQA makes non-functional quality issues a first-class concern allowing end-user developers to consider both functional and non-functional aspects of design alternatives. The tool uses visualization techniques to aid in non-functional quality assesment. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and assess the opportunities and challenges of EUREQA. A qualitative, pilot evaluation of EUREQA shows that the visualization techniques work well, whereas there are issues with the abstraction gap between the visualization and class diagram.