How Good Are These UML Diagrams? An Empirical Test of the Wand and Weber Good Decomposition Model

HOW GOOD ARE THESE UML DIAGRAMS?AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE WAND ANDWEBER GOOD DECOMPOSITION MODELAndrew Burton-Jones Peter MesoJ. Mack Robinson College of Business J. Mack Robinson College of BusinessGeorgia State University Georgia State UniversityAtlanta, GA USA Atlanta, GA USAabjones@cis.gsu.edu pmeso@cis.gsu.eduAbstractIn 1989, Wand and Weber proposed a formal model of systems decomposition based on ontology. Chidamberand Kemerer (1994) soon applied this model to develop complexity metrics for object-oriented design (OOD).Chidamber and Kemerer?s OOD metrics suite continues to receive interest in software engineering (Bansiyaand Davis 2002; Basili et al. 1996). To date, however, Wand and Weber?s good decomposition model hasreceived almost no application in information systems (IS). For three reasons, we believe the theory mightassist IS researchers. First, object-oriented analysis (OOA) has not been as successful in practice as OOD orOO programming (Chuang and Yadav 2000). The good decomposition model may help IS researchersinvestigate improvements to OOA. Second, Johnson (2002) recently lamented how few OOA studies employany theory. Wand and Weber?s theory may, therefore, be a useful approach. Third, many believe OOA is arevolutionary step away from traditional approaches (Sircar et al. 2001). Practicing analysts could benefitfrom theory-based principles to guide their use of this revolutionary technique. In this study, we report ...