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Proposal Of A Generic Visual Critic Authoring Framework

By: Norhayati Mohd.AliPhD Candidate[1st Year : PhD]

Supervisors: Prof.John Grundy & Prof.John Hosking

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Content

• Introduction• Research Objective• Literature Review &

Motivation• Approach• Methodology• Research Progress• Conclusions

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Introduction

• Integrated support tools have been developed to support designers in developing complex software/systems

• One of the components of such integrated support tools Critics

• Focus of researchThe use of critic tools in software development

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Introduction

• Critic tools have been used for many domains.

• Critic tools:– detect potential problems– Give advice and alternative

solutions– Possibly automated/semi-

automated design improvements to the end-user

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Research Objective

• The objective of this research is to develop a generic visual critic authoring framework embedded within an end-user oriented domain specific visual language meta tool

• This will allow tool critic support to be developed in parallel with the tools

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Literature Review

• Critic-support tools• DSVL• Meta-tool & meta-model

concept• Visual modelling

environment• OCL

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Critic-support tools

Tool Domain

ArgoUML Software architecture

ArchStudio Software architecture

SoftArch Software architecture

IDEA Design pattern

ABCDE-Critic

OOAD

DAISY Software architecture

AIR Requirement engineering

Prefer Requirement engineering

Table1:Critic tool research in SE domain

Tool Domain

Onconcin Clinical

SEDAR Civil engineering

Java critiquer

Education

Design evaluator

Design sketch system

CATS Recommender system

Table 2:Critic tools in other domain

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DSVL• The domain-specific visual language

(DSVL) are graphical notations specially devised for the specific needs and knowledge [J de Lara, H.Vangheluwe]

• allows someone who is a domain expert to use the visual language as an application development tool for the domain.

• defined by a modeling language(meta-model) that defines a set of possible languages(models) and provides a basis for generators.

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Motivation• Most existing critic tools use

representational approaches that are:– complex to express– requires deep programming

understanding– difficult for end user designers

• No visual critic authoring tool• Opportunity to design &

develop a visual critic authoring framework

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Approach

• Based on the “Three examples” pattern of the Evolving Frameworks Pattern Language [Roberts,D & Johnson,R. ]

• Generalize from the three examples to a generic visual language and support environment

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MethodologyIdentify a set of initial requirements for a visual critic tool

Design & implement the visual critic authoring framework

Identify a core set of building blocks needed for a generic critic authoring framework

Develop an initial prototype – explore problems & issues

Design three examples of visual critic tools with different domains

LR-critic tools, compare & analyse

Evaluate the visual critic authoring tool:

-construct a prototype systems and examples

-Test against design examples

-conduct end user evaluation

y1

y3

y2

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Research Progress

• Analyse and compare the critic-based tools (based on table 1)

• List critic specification• Apply Marama formula

designer – as a stepping stone

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Research Progress• Critic Specifications

Critic elements description

Critic name name of the critic

Critic rules rules to construct critics

Critic domain domain of the problem

Critic categories all critics are categorized based on the type of domain knowledge

Critic repository to store all critics

Critic strategies Strategies to repair/fix any identified defects/errors

Defect detector Detect potential defects

Critic message Generate messages/warning relating to defects

Rationale Give rationale explanation for each critic

Suggestion/solution Give solution/suggestion for each critic

Critic dimension Refers to when a critic should interrupt the end user (active/passive, negative/positive)

Critic priority Ranking for each critic (H/M/L)

Critic editor Capability to add, edit, view & delete critics

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Research Progress

Domain:UML class diagram

Critic name Description Suggestion

Duplicate Class name Two classes in the design have the same name

Rename one of the components or remove one of the components

Duplicate Attribute name

Two attributes within a Class have the same

Rename one of the attributes or remove one of the attributes

Naming Critics concerned with Class, Attribute & Method

Example of critic:

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Research Progress

Domain:UML class diagram

Critic name Description Suggestion

Self-inheritance A Class references a subclass of itself

remove the reference from the superclass to the subclass

Circular inheritance

There is a cycle in generalization relationship

remove one of the relationship to break the cycle

Structure Critics concerned with the Relationships between Classes

Example of critic:

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Research Progress

• Visual Critic’s metamodel

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Conclusions

• Through this research, we will provide proofs of the fact that such a DSVL for critic-support tool will assists the end-user software designers to express critics naturally and efficiently at the meta level

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THANK YOU

• Thank you for listening

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