[Draft] Web Environment for Collaborative and Extensible Diagram Design

This is the first paper in which I collaborate as principal author, with the support of José Emilio Labra Gayo, Sheila Méndez Núñez and Ana Belén Martinez Prieto.

Special thanks to Lucía Méndez Núñez for her review of the translation from Spanish to English.

The paper addresess the need of a web environment for colaborative diagram design, with broad posibilities of functional extensions, configuration and personalization by users. The idea grows from my end degree project, but with some new improvements in order to check some metrics about colaborative diagram tools usability, mainly UML, as well as psycological studies of software engineering.

Abstract

There is a growing need for development tools ubiquity, due to the portability and availability problems concerning desktop applications. In this paper, we suggest an approach to avoid any further download or installation. The main goal is to offer a collaborative and extensible web environment which covers a series of domains highly demanded by different kinds of working groups, in which it is crucial to have tools which facilitate the exchange of information and the collaboration among their members. The result would be the development of one or several diagrams accesible from any geographical location, independently of the device employed. By means of this environment, it will be possible to do research on the usability of collaborative tools for design diagrams, mainly UML, as well as research on the psychology of software engineering, assessing the results coming from the employment of methodologies, techniques, paradigms, patterns, etc. Both at an individual and at a collaborative development group level.

Full paper

[PDF] Web Environment for Collaborative and Extensible Diagram Design

[PDF] Entorno Web para el Diseño Colaborativo y Extensible de Diagramas