Using color highlighting for the understanding of BPMN business process models.

Abstract

Business processes deliver products and services to customers. A business process model is a graphical representation of a process, with events, activities and decisions. Process models should be understandable to facilitate communication and problem solving. But people may be overwhelmed (map shock) by large, static one-size-fits-all process models, while they may just need a specific part. Color highlighting or tagging may help addressing these problems. This research
extends some previous promising research, using color highlighting to improve the understanding of BPMN process models.

In this research color highlighting is used, based on the relevant region principle. BPMN process models with color highlighting are compared with (benchmark) black and white process models (without highlighting). The quantitative research is done using an online survey with structured questionnaires, with questions about the different process models.

The main hypothese Business process models with color highlighting have a higher understandability than business process models without color highlighting is partly accepted. There is a significant effect found for task effectiveness, but not for task efficiency and perceived difficulty. When looking
at low, medium and high experience groups, there was a significant effect only for task effectiveness, for the low knowledge and experience group.

Date of Award	10 Dec 2023
Original language	English
Supervisor	Irene Vanderfeesten (Supervisor) & Samaneh Bagheri (Examiner)