Is BPMN Really First Choice in Joint Architecture Development? An Empirical Study on the Usability of BPMN and UML Activity Diagrams for Business Users

Abstract

AbstractJoint architecture development plays a key role in service-oriented computing as it facilitates the coordination of business processes with the software architectures of applications. To better support business users in the communication of business process semantics, the Object Management Group advises to adopt the newly standardized Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) instead of the UML Activity Diagram. A main reason for this advice is that BPMN is presumed to be more usable for business users than the technically-oriented Activity Diagram. Adopting a new process modeling language, however, is a significant expense factor for businesses and consolidated findings on whether such presumptions hold true in practice are missing. In this paper, we present results from an empirical study, in which we examined the application of BPMN and the UML Activity Diagram by business users during a model creation task. Results indicate that the UML Activity Diagram is at least as usable as BPMN since neither user effectiveness, efficiency, nor satisfaction differ significantly.KeywordsModeling LanguageObject Management GroupBusiness Process Execution LanguageBusiness Process Modeling NotationBusiness UserThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.