Does the Level of Detail of UML Diagrams Affect the Maintainability of Source Code?: A Family of Experiments

Although the UML is considered to be the de facto standard notation with which to model software, there is still resistance to model-based development. UML modeling is perceived to be expensive and not necessarily cost-effective. It is therefore important to collect empirical evidence concerning the conditions under which the use of UML makes a practical difference. The focus of this paper is to investigate whether and how the Level of Detail (LoD) of UML diagrams impacts on the performance of maintenance tasks. A family of experiments consisting of one controlled experiment and three replications has therefore been carried out with 81 students with different abilities and levels of experience from 3 countries (The Netherlands, Spain, and Italy). The analysis of the results of the experiments indicates that there is no strong statistical evidence as to the influence of different LoDs. The analysis suggests a slight tendency toward better results when using low LoD UML diagrams, especially if used for the modification of the source code, while a high LoD would appear to be helpful in understanding the system. The participants in our study also favored low LoD diagrams because they were perceived as easier to read. Although the participants expressed a preference for low LoD diagrams, no statistically significant conclusions can be drawn from the set of experiments. One important finding attained during this family of experiments was that the participants minimized or avoided the use of UML diagrams, regardless of their LoD. This effect was probably the result of using small software systems from well-known domains as experimental materials.