Developing a Generic Metric For Measuring Model Complexity

In recent years, various object and process oriented modeling methods were developed to support the process of modeling in enterprises. When applying these methods, graphical models are generated and used to depict various aspects of enterprise architectures. Concerning this, surveys analyzing modeling languages in different ways were conducted. In many cases these surveys include experimental data collection methods. At this juncture the complexity of concrete models often affects output of these studies. To ensure complexity value comparability of different models, a generic metric for measuring complexity of models is proposed. Another variable impacting on the output of a usability study in the domain of graphical modeling languages is the complexity of different tasks applied. Since we move in the area of modeling languages, a metric measuring task complexity by defining complexity of models that have to be developed or interpreted by survey participants is developed. This ensures comparability of survey results crossing different modeling languages. In this chapter the development of a generic metric measuring model complexity (GCMM) is proposed. The developed metric is evaluated and applied in the empirical surveys in this thesis [Schalles et al., 2010c].