How Advanced Change Patterns Impact the Process of Process Modeling

TL;DR

This study investigates how different sets of change patterns affect process modeling, revealing that extended patterns increase difficulty and are underused, impacting model quality and user experience.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into the effects of core versus extended change pattern sets on process modelers' challenges and perceptions.

Findings

Extended pattern set increases perceived difficulty.

Advanced patterns are underused and often applied incorrectly.

No significant difference in challenges across pattern sets.

Abstract

Process model quality has been an area of considerable research efforts. In this context, correctness-by-construction as enabled by change patterns provides promising perspectives. While the process of process modeling (PPM) based on change primitives has been thoroughly investigated, only little is known about the PPM based on change patterns. In particular, it is unclear what set of change patterns should be provided and how the available change pattern set impacts the PPM. To obtain a better understanding of the latter as well as the (subjective) perceptions of process modelers, the arising challenges, and the pros and cons of different change pattern sets we conduct a controlled experiment. Our results indicate that process modelers face similar challenges irrespective of the used change pattern set (core pattern set versus extended pattern set, which adds two advanced change patterns to the core patterns set). An extended change pattern set, however, is perceived as more difficult to use, yielding a higher mental effort. Moreover, our results indicate that more advanced patterns were only used to a limited extent and frequently applied incorrectly, thus, lowering the potential benefits of an extended pattern set.