Evaluation of process tools in systems analysis

Process tools are used during Systems Analysis to describe the process logic of bubbles in Data Flow Diagrams. We conducted two experiments to determine the relative merits of three process tools: Structured English from textual tool category; Decision Tables from tabular tool category; and Nassi-Schneiderman Charts from graphical tool category. We measured three performance types: tool-based comprehension to find understandability of the information in the tool itself; context-based comprehension to find understandability of information in the tool in combination with the information in the rest of structured specification; and the time of comprehension. Unlike most previous research that show graphical tools are the best, our results are different. We show that textual tools (Structured English) are better than both graphical tools (N-S Chart) and tabular tools (Decision Tables), when the problem size is smaller and the users are technically (computer) oriented. The tabular tools (Decision Tables) are better than graphical tools and textual tools, when the problem is moderately large and the users are non-technically (management) oriented.