Results from Two Controlled Experiments on the Effect of Using Requirement Diagrams on the Requirements Comprehension

Abstract

We carried out a controlled experiment and an external replication to investigate whether the use of requirement diagrams of the SysML (System Modeling Language) helps in the comprehensibility of requirements. The original experiment was conducted at the University of Basilicata in Italy with Bachelor students, while its replication was executed at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden with Bachelor and Master students. A total of 87 participants took part in the two experiments. The achieved results indicated that the comprehension of requirements is statistically higher when requirements speci cation documents include requirement diagrams without any impact on the time to accomplish comprehension tasks.