doi:10.1016/j.is.2009.03.009 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting galley proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Activity Labeling in Process Modeling:

Abstract. The rise of interest in declarative languages for process modeling both justifies and demands empirical investigations into their presumed advantages over more traditional, imperative alternatives. Our concern in this paper is with the ease of maintaining business process models, for example due to changing performance or conformance demands. We aim to contribute to a rigorous, theoretical discussion of this topic by drawing a link to well-established research on maintainability of information artifacts.

This is the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source:

Systems journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/infosys Activity labeling in process modeling: Empirical insights and recommendations

The widespread implementation of Business Process Management (BPM) strategies has increased the demand for an integral approach to business process modeling, in which all stakeholders can effectively participate and together shape a company’s business processes. Amongst others, this demand was a basis for the development of the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) as a proposed industry standard. It does not only provide technical advantages such as a support for serviceoriented computing, but also claims to be readily usable for business users. Following this presumption, BPMN is even used by the Object Management Group (OMG). It adopted BPMN instead of the Activity Diagram (UML AD) as the core standard to create a business modeling framework. For companies, however, changing to a new process modeling language is a significant expense factor. Furthermore, consolidated findings on whether BPMN is indeed more usable for business users than UML AD are missing. In this paper, we present results from a comprehensive empirical comparison of both languages, in which we examined the application by business users during a model creation task. Results indicate that the UML AD is at least as usable as BPMN, since BPMN did neither differ significantly

Models offer visual support for analyzing complex domains such as business processes and information systems. In both cases, models are developed using graphical modelling languages. In our study we focus on usability evaluation of modelling languages for the model interpretation scenario. The study is based on a causal model of hypotheses, which was developed under consideration of psychological cognitive theories and usability theory. Survey data is collected and the causal relations hypotheses are assessed using a structure equation modelling approach. Our study shows important findings for practical and theoretical issues of how differing modelling languages are influencing usability attributes on causal stages in model interpretation.

Abstract not found