A Controlled Experiment for Selecting Transformations based on Quality Attributes in the context of MDA

In this paper, we briefly introduce a controlled experiment to investigate the selection of alternative transformation rules through which to obtain UML class diagrams from a Requirements Model. The main goal of this experiment was to determine which of the transformation rules for structural relationships between classes (association (Al), aggregation (A2) and association class (A3)) produces the UML class diagram that is easiest to understand. More details about the transformations and about the experiment are provided. We focus upon the understandability of UML class diagrams because it is well recognized that if a model is easier to understand it will be easier to maintain, reuse, etc.