Notation and representation in collaborative object-oriented design: an observational study

Software designers in the object-oriented paradigm can make use of modeling tools and standard notations such as UML. Nevertheless, casual observations from collocated design collaborations suggest that teams tend to use physical mediums to sketch a plethora of informal diagrams in varied representations that often diverge from UML. To better understand such collaborations and support them with tools, we need to understand the origins, roles, uses, and implications of these alternate representations. To this end, we conducted observational studies of collaborative design exercises, in which we focused on representation use. Our primary finding is that teams intentionally improvise representations and organize design information in response to ad-hoc needs, which arise from the evolution of the design, and which are difficult to meet with fixed standard notations. This behavior incurs orientation and grounding difficulties for which teams compensate by relying on memory, other comm...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: OOPSLA
• Authors: Uri Dekel, James D. Herbsleb
• Keywords: Collaborative Design, Collaborative Design Exercises, OOPSLA 2007, Standard Notations