Abstract-UML modeling tools are notoriously hard to use for many reasons, including complexity of the language, weak support for methodologies, and insensitivity to users' concerns. This is manifested in tools that expose all of their capabilities at once, overwhelming users. The problem is exacerbated when a tool supports multiple domain-specific languages that are defined on top of UML. In this case, the tool customizations necessary for each language may interfere with each other and exacerbate the complexity further. In this paper, we discuss an approach to reduce the complexity of UML tools by implementing and adapting the ISO 42010 standard on architecture description. In this approach, the notions of architecture contexts and architecture viewpoints allow heterogeneous UML-based languages to be independently supported and help contextualize the exposed tool capabilities to them. We present a case study where we defined several architecture contexts, and provided an implementation for them in the Papyrus modeling tool. The implementation of this novel approach demonstrated the ability for multiple architecture contexts to coexist without interference and provided significant reduction in the exposed capabilities in the UI.
Elaasar et al. has discussed REF about the limit of UML which exacerbate the complexity of development, and proposed an approach to reduce the complexity of UML tools by implementing and adapting the ISO 42010 standard on architecture description.
Reducing UML Modeling Tool Complexity with Architectural Contexts and Viewpoints
MODELSWARD
Computer Science