Empirical Research Plan: Effects of Sketching on Program Comprehension

TL;DR

This paper proposes an empirical research plan to investigate how sketching influences program comprehension, aiming to understand its effectiveness, efficiency, and usage patterns in software engineering.

Contribution

It introduces a controlled experiment framework to systematically study the impact of sketches on program comprehension, addressing a gap in empirical research.

Findings

Sketching potentially improves understanding efficiency

Different sketching styles influence comprehension outcomes

Empirical data on sketching practices in software engineering

Abstract

Sketching is an important means of communication in software engineering practice. Yet, there is little research investigating the use of sketches. We want to contribute a better understanding of sketching, in particular its use during program comprehension. We propose a controlled experiment to investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of program comprehension with the support of sketches as well as what sketches are used in what way.