Intuitive Understanding of Domain-Specific Model Languages: Proposition and application of an Evaluation Technique between two grammars

Abstract

The strategic goals of an organization need to be (1) aligned with supporting business processes, and (2) communicated to their stakeholders intuitively. Enterprise Architecture (EA) focuses on these aspects. Conceptual modelling languages are used to describe the EA of organizations. One stream that can be distinguished is the domain specific modelling language (DSML). The designer of a DSML should aim for computational offloading by replacing cognitive tasks by perceptual ones. An intuitive notation can account for computational offloading, which ultimately leads to an intuitive understanding of the new DSML.
This research aims at developing an empirical evaluation method which can help makers of conceptual models to test how intuitive a new version of a modelling language is in comparison to an older version or a different modelling language which aims at delivering the same message.
In this research a new empirical evaluation method was developed and tested in a governmental setting evaluating the newly proposed and initial version of the Domain specific modelling language Process-Goal Alignment. It provides an answer whether the newly proposed version is more intuitive to understand than the initial version on the proxy indicators for intuitiveness, namely, interpretational effectiveness, interpretational efficiency, and perceived ease of use. The newly proposed version significantly performs better for the overall effectiveness and overall ease of use.

Date of Award	21 Jun 2021
Original language	English
Supervisor	Ben Roelens (Examiner) & Lianne Cuijpers (Co-assessor)