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The Application of Function Models In Software Design: A Survey Within the Software Community
Pujani Abayatilake, Lucienne T.M. Blessing
Pages - 27 - 62     |    Revised - 30-09-2021     |    Published - 31-10-2021
Volume - 9   Issue - 2    |    Publication Date - October 2021  Table of Contents
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KEYWORDS
Function Modelling, Unified Modelling Language (UML), Software Design, SDLC, Conceptual Design, Object-Oriented Modelling, Empirical Studies.
ABSTRACT
Numerous function modelling approaches exist for software design. However, there is little empirical evidence on how these approaches are used in the early stages of software design. This article presents the results of an online survey on the application of function models in the academic and industrial software development community. The results show that more than 90% of the 75 respondents agreed with the statement that software projects that use function modelling techniques have a higher chance of success than other projects. UML is the most widely accepted and used modelling approach among the respondents, but only a handful of UML diagrams appear to be prominently addressed during the early software design stages. Asked for reasons for selecting or rejecting UML models the majority of respondents mentioned using function models to understand software requirements and communicate these with clients and technical teams, whereas lack of familiarity, the time-consuming nature of some models and data redundancy are widely mentioned reasons for not or seldomly using certain models. The study also shows a strong relationship between model usage and respondents’ professions. We conclude that improvements are required to ensure the benefits of the various available models and the links between the models can be fully exploited to support individual designers, to improve communication and collaboration, and to increase project success. A short discussion on the chosen solution direction - a simplified function modelling approach – closes the paper.
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Mrs. Pujani Abayatilake
Engineering Product Development, Singapore University of Technology and Design, 487372 - Singapore
poohsavi@gmail.com
Professor Lucienne T.M. Blessing
Engineering Product Development, Singapore University of Technology and Design, 487372 - Singapore


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