Applying cognitive patterns to support software tool development

Abstract

This research was motivated by the development of a set of cognitive patterns [3], and the hypothesis that those patterns could lead to innovative and useful features in software development environments. Cognitive patterns are descriptions of ways people think and act when exploring or explaining software. In this research we focused on the Temporal Details cognitive patterns, which describe the dynamics of the changes in someone's mental model. The main objective of this research, therefore, is to determine to what extent software engineering tool features could be derived from the cognitive patterns, specifically belonging to the Temporal Details hierarchy. As the first step in our research, we analysed current tool support for cognitive patterns. The second step was to create and evaluate a list of potential new features based on the cognitive patterns. Thirdly, we developed a prototype for our most promising feature entitled Temporal Model Explorer (TME). This prototype helps people understand and manipulate the history of a software model. Users can use a slider to browse the history of the construction of a UML diagram from its point of creation to its current state. Navigation can be performed at different levels of granularity. Design rationale can be included at any point in the history. The final step was to evaluate the TME prototype with twelve participants from different backgrounds. The participants found the tool useful, and agreed that they would use it if it was available in their work environment.