Empirical and theoretical evaluation of USE and OCLE tools

Abstract

Validating the conceptual model (CM) is a key activity in ensuring software quality and saving costs, especially when adopting any type of Model-driven Software Engineering methodology, in which standard modelling languages such as UML and tools support for validation become essential. This paper analyses and evaluates the main characteristics of the tools to support test-based validation in CMs. For this, two research approaches were used: (1) an empirical evaluation to compare the effectiveness and fault detection efficiency in a CM and analyses the level of ease of use of two tools used to validate requirements in UML conceptual models, and (2) a complementary theoretical analysis. The study focuses on the class diagram, the most common type of UML diagram, and two tools widely used by the modelling community for test-based validation: USE and OCLE. Theoretical and empirical comparisons were carried out with the aim of selecting an appropriate tool to validate UML-based CMs with OCLE achieving a better score.