A visual traceability modeling language

Abstract

Software traceability is effort intensive and must be applied strategically in order to maximize its benefits and justify its costs. Unfortunately, development tools provide only limited support for traceability, and as a result users often construct trace queries using generic query languages which require intensive knowledge of the data-structures in which artifacts are stored. In this paper, we propose a usage-centered traceability process that utilizes UML class diagrams to define traceability strategies for a project and then visually represents trace queries as constraints upon subsets of the model. The Visual Trace Modeling Language (VTML) allows users to model queries while hiding the underlying technical details and data structures. The approach has been demonstrated through a prototype system and and evaluated through a preliminary experiment to evaluate the expressiveness and readability of VTML in comparison to generic SQL queries. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.