Supporting several levels of restriction in the UML

Abstract

The emergence of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) has provided software developers with an effective and efficient shared language. However, UML is often too restrictive in initial, informal, and creative modelling, and it is in some cases not restrictive enough, e.g., for code generation. Based on user studies, we propose that tool and meta-level support for several levels of restriction in diagrams and models is needed. We furthermore present a tool, Knight, which supports several levels of restriction as well as ways of transferring models from one level of restriction to another. This approach potentially increases the usability of the UML, and thus ultimately leads to greater quality and adoption of UML models.