scholarly journals Influence of diagram layout and scrolling on understandability of BPMN processes: an eye tracking experiment with BPMN diagrams

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lübke ◽  
Maike Ahrens ◽  
Kurt Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Process Diagrams ◽  
Style Guides ◽  
Important Activity

AbstractBusiness process modeling is an important activity for developing software systems—especially within digitization projects and when realizing digital business models. Specifying requirements and building executable workflows is often done by using BPMN 2.0 process models. Although there are several style guides available for BPMN, e.g., by Silver and Richard (BPMN method and style, vol 2, Cody-Cassidy Press, Aptos, 2009), there has not been much empirical research done into the consequences of the diagram layout. In particular, layouts that require scrolling have not been investigated yet. The aim of this research is to establish layout guidelines for business process modeling that help business process modelers to create more understandable business process diagrams. For establishing benefits and penalties of different layouts, a controlled eye tracking experiment was conducted, in which data of 21 professional software developers was used. Our results show that horizontal layouts are less demanding and that as many diagram elements as possible should be put on the initially visible screen area because such diagram elements are viewed more often and longer. Additionally, diagram elements related to the reader’s task are read more often than those not relevant to the task. BPMN modelers should favor a horizontal layout and use a more complex snake or multi-line layout whenever the diagrams are too large to fit on one page in order to support BPMN model comprehension.

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN BUSINESS MODELS AND WORKFLOW SPECIFICATIONS

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (03) ◽  
pp. 289-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIANE DEHNERT ◽  
WIL M. P. VAN DER AALST
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Modeling Language ◽  
Correctness Criterion ◽  
Process Chains ◽  
Selection Of

This paper presents a methodology to bridge the gap between business process modeling and workflow specification. While the first is concerned with intuitive descriptions that are mainly used for communication, the second is concerned with configuring a process-aware information system, thus requiring a more rigorous language less suitable for communication. Unlike existing approaches the gap is not bridged by providing formal semantics for an informal language. Instead it is assumed that the desired behavior is just a subset of the full behavior obtained using a liberal interpretation of the informal business process modeling language. Using a new correctness criterion (relaxed soundness), it is verified whether a selection of suitable behavior is possible. The methodology consists of five steps and is illustrated using event-driven process chains as a business process modeling language and Petri nets as the workflow specification language.

Tool Based Integration of Requirements Modeling and Validation into Business Process Modeling

2014 ◽  
pp. 285-309
Author(s):  
Sven Feja ◽  
Sören Witt ◽  
Andreas Speck
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Level Of Abstraction ◽  
Textual Representations ◽  
Model Driven Software Development ◽  
The One

Business process models (BPM) are widely used for specification of software systems, as the basis for model driven software development. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that these BPMs fulfill the requirements they have to comply with. These requirements may originate from various domains. Many may be considered non-functional requirements. They are affecting privacy, security, as well as compliance or economic aspects. In order to avoid error-prone manual checking, automated checking techniques should be applied wherever possible. This requires expressing requirements in a formal manner. The common textual representations for such formal requirements are not well accepted in the modeling domain, since they are settled on a lower level of abstraction, compared to BPMs. In this chapter, the authors present the Business Application Modeler (BAM), which integrates formal requirement specification and automated checking with process modeling. On the one hand BAM supports different notations for process modeling. On the other hand a graphical notation, called G-CTL, for the formal specification of requirements is provided. G-CTL is based on temporal logic, and statements are expressed on the level of abstraction of the graphical process models. Furthermore BAM provides the ability to define selective views on process models. This allows complex domain specific annotations of processes as well as the assignment of responsibilities regarding functional domains. Moreover, BAM integrates into common requirements engineering processes.

A Method for Eliciting Goals for Business Process Models based on Non-Functional Requirements Catalogues

2013 ◽  
pp. 226-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evellin Cardoso ◽  
João Paulo A. Almeida ◽  
Renata S. S. Guizzardi ◽  
Giancarlo Guizzardi
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Goal Models

While traditional approaches in business process modeling tend to focus on “how” the business processes are performed (adopting a behavioral description in which business processes are described in terms of procedural aspects), in goal-oriented business process modeling, the proposals strive to extend traditional business process methodologies by providing a dimension of intentionality to business processes. One of the key difficulties in enabling one to model goal-oriented processes concerns the identification or elicitation of goals. This paper reports on a case study conducted in a Brazilian hospital, which obtained several goal models represented in i*/Tropos, each of which correspond to a business process also modeled in the scope of the study. NFR catalogues were helpful in goal elicitation, uncovering goals that did not come up during previous interviews prior to these catalogues’ use.

Ownership relevance in aspect-oriented business process models

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite ◽  
Flavia Maria Santoro ◽  
Claudia Cappelli ◽  
Thais Vasconcelos Batista ◽  
Fabiana Jack Nogueira Santos
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Modeling Notation ◽  
Representation Scheme

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a representation scheme based on the i* strategic actor model to represent the process owner information and show how to incorporate this approach into the event driven process chain and Business Process Modeling Notation-BPMN meta-models and also into the aspect-oriented business process modeling (BPM) context. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a case study in a real setting to evaluate the proposal and a controlled experiment to get more evidence about its relevance. Findings – The authors presented evidence both from a case study in a real-world library showing the importance of representing – previously unavailable – process owner information, and from an experiment which involved participants analyzing the same models of the case study, confirming the preliminary evidences. It is important to stress the recognition that the proposed representation provided more transparency, in terms of ownership, than the usual BPM models. These benefits are due to the combination of the aspect-oriented approach and the strategic actor model, providing ownership information in a more transparent way. Originality/value – The authors not only argue the importance of clearly established process ownership, both of the core process and the aspectual process, but also the authors presented an approach to represent the actor involved in process and aspect ownership as an instantiation of the i* strategic actor. Using this approach, the process owner can be defined in terms of actors instead of the activities performed. It is also possible to define the aspect owner and to include the aspectual process concept in the business process model.

scholarly journals Plug-in for Annotating Semantic Efferct on BPMN Business Process Models

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Hilman Nuril Hadi ◽  
Tri Astoto Kurniawan ◽  
Ismiarta Aknuranda
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Model ◽  
Activity Type ◽  
Modeling Tools ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Design Time

BPMN has become the standard of business process modeling indescribing the existing series of business process. By engaging BPMN, an analystwould possibly able to model the whole business process activities in whichhe/she may analyze business process upon design time. It can be done byanalyzing the structure, behavior, or semantic of process model. In certaincondition one may ask a question what would the effects of the process be if itwere to be executed up to this point?. However, it cannot be solved with onlygraphical notation, but with its semantics. In practice, several modeling tools stilldo not provide a feature for managing information regarding the effects/resultsin the business process model. In fact, analysts should be supported with a toolin order to semantically enrich a process model with its effects. This articledescribes effect annotation semantically towards activity in the BPMN modelincluding the rules in representing its effects. The effect annotation will be suitedtowards activity type (atomic and compound activities). The outcomes of plugin development of eclipse BPMN2 modeler for representing semantic effect arealso described in this paper.

Tool Based Integration of Requirements Modeling and Validation into Business Process Modeling

2012 ◽  
pp. 512-536
Author(s):  
Sven Feja ◽  
Sören Witt ◽  
Andreas Speck
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Level Of Abstraction ◽  
Textual Representations ◽  
Model Driven Software Development ◽  
The One

Business process models (BPM) are widely used for specification of software systems, as the basis for model driven software development. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that these BPMs fulfill the requirements they have to comply with. These requirements may originate from various domains. Many may be considered non-functional requirements. They are affecting privacy, security, as well as compliance or economic aspects. In order to avoid error-prone manual checking, automated checking techniques should be applied wherever possible. This requires expressing requirements in a formal manner. The common textual representations for such formal requirements are not well accepted in the modeling domain, since they are settled on a lower level of abstraction, compared to BPMs. In this chapter, the authors present the Business Application Modeler (BAM), which integrates formal requirement specification and automated checking with process modeling. On the one hand BAM supports different notations for process modeling. On the other hand a graphical notation, called G-CTL, for the formal specification of requirements is provided. G-CTL is based on temporal logic, and statements are expressed on the level of abstraction of the graphical process models. Furthermore BAM provides the ability to define selective views on process models. This allows complex domain specific annotations of processes as well as the assignment of responsibilities regarding functional domains. Moreover, BAM integrates into common requirements engineering processes.

Foundations of Business Process Modeling

2010 ◽  
pp. 6-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Mendling
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
General Information ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Execution

This chapter provides an overview of business process management and business process modeling. We approach business process management by giving a historical classification of seminal work, and define it by the help of the business process management life cycle. Business process models play an important role in this life cycle, in particular, if information systems are used for executing processes. We deduct a definition for business process modeling based on a discussion of modeling from a general information systems point of view. In the following, we detail business process modeling techniques, in particular, modeling languages and modeling procedures for business process modeling. Finally, we discuss some future trends with a focus on the business process execution language for Web services (BPEL), and conclude the chapter with a summary. The chapter aims to cover business process modeling in a comprehensive way such that academics and practitioners can use it as a reference for identifying more specialized works.

A Rule-Based Approach to Model Business Process

2013 ◽  
pp. 424-441
Author(s):  
Gang Xue ◽  
Zhongwei Wu ◽  
Kun Zhang ◽  
Shaowen Yao
Keyword(s):  
Flow Control ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Plain Text ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Rule Based Approach

Up to the present, the modeling of business process manly focuses on the flow-control perspective, regardless of the logic relationships between models. Although the value of business rules in business process modeling has been recognized by many organizations, it is not fully clear how business rules can be used to model business process models. Business rules are powerful representation forms that can potentially define the semantics of business process models and business vocabulary. This chapter is committed to model the business process based on SBVR, then use the method mentioned below to transform a plain text rule statement into BPMN files.

Software Engineering Security Based on Business Process Modeling

2012 ◽  
pp. 52-68
Author(s):  
Joseph Barjis
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Software Design ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Security Requirements ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Security Breaches ◽  
Organizational Semiotics ◽  
Enterprise Ontology

Security requirements must be tackled early in software design and embedded in corresponding business process models. As a blueprint for software design, business process models complemented with security requirements will prevent many security breaches. To accomplish secure business process modeling, the underlying method must adhere to certain capabilities and capture actions, actor roles, and interactions. The resultant models should lend themselves to automatic analysis (simulation) to ensure captured security requirements are correctly aligned with the process flow. Thus, the tradeoff between the level of security and business performance can be studied before actual software design. Since unauthorized actions cause security breaches, the software the system’s social setting could be a cradle for defining security requirements. Security requirements can be identified based on the roles, authorities, and obligations of the social actors using the system. This paper introduces a method for security embedded business process modeling. The proposed method draws on two well-tested theoretical foundations—enterprise ontology and organizational semiotics.

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