Preliminary Results on the Understandability of i* Notations.

In this article, we describe the first results of two series of experiments. It is the aim of our experiments to compare the performance of novice users working with i∗ models. We compared the results achieved with i∗ diagrams in the traditional notation with the results using the alternative notation which has been suggested by using Moody’s “Physics of Notations” framework. We created two models in both variants of the notation. In the first experiment, we asked comprehension questions about models printed on paper. In a second experiment, the participants had to answer questions using models on a computer screen. The results give first support to the hypothesis that the improvements suggested by Moody could be helpful for understanding i∗ models. We also identified a detail for which the newly suggested notation variant can lead to understandability problems and should be improved.