Evaluating user acceptance of knowledge-intensive business process modeling languages

Abstract

Case Management has been evolving to support knowledge-intensive business process management, resulting in different modeling languages, e.g., Declare, Dynamic Condition Response (DCR), and Case Management Model and Notation (CMMN). A language will die if users do not accept and use it in practice—similar to extinct human languages. Thus, evaluating how users perceive languages is important to improve them. Although some studies have investigated how the process designers perceived Declare and DCR, there is a lack of research on how they perceive CMMN—especially in comparison with other languages. Therefore, this paper investigates and compares how process designers perceive these languages based on the Technology Acceptance Model. The paper includes two studies conducted in 2020 and 2022, both performed by educating participants through a course, with feedback on their assignments, to reduce biases. The perceptions are collected through questionnaires before and after feedback on the final practice. Results show that the perceptions change is insignificant after feedback due to the participants being well-trained. The reliability of responses was tested using Cronbach’s alpha. The results of the first study show that both DCR and CMMN were perceived as having acceptable usefulness and ease of use, but CMMN was perceived as significantly better than DCR in terms of ease of use. The results of the second study show that only DCR was perceived significantly better than Declare in terms of usefulness. The participants’ feedback shows potential areas for improvement in languages and tool support to enhance perceived usefulness and ease of use.