A Rigorous and Comprehensive Analysis of Effort for Modeling Aspect State Machines: Results from a Series of Controlled Experiments

In this paper, we report a comprehensive analysis of Effort required for performing various modeling activities, based on the data we collected from a series of controlled experiments. These experiments were conducted to evaluate the overall applicability of a UML profile for Aspect-oriented Modeling (AOM): AspectSM. AspectSM was developed to model crosscutting behaviors on UML state machines and has been successfully applied for supporting model-based robustness testing at Cisco Systems, Norway. Our analysis results show that Effort required for applying AspectSM does not deviate significantly from Effort required for applying non-AOM modeling approaches for various modeling activities related to crosscutting behaviors. In addition, our previous studies show that AspectSM helps achieving improved readability of state machines, improved modeling quality, and increased understandability, reduced modeling errors, and require lesser number of modeling elements. Therefore, we conclude that modeling crosscutting behaviors using AspectSM can bring significant benefits in practice at no significant additional Effort as compared to using standard UML state machines.