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A UML-based Simple Function Point Estimation Method and Tool

Authors:
Geng Liu
Xingqi Wang
Jinglong Fang

Keywords: Functional Size Measures; Simple Function Point; SiFP; UML; Object-oriented measures.

Abstract:
Function Point Analysis (FPA) is used to measure the size of functional user requirements of software applications. However the measurement process of the FPA is slow, expensive and complex. The Simple Function Point (SiFP) method has been proposed as a replacement of FPA that is much faster and cheaper to apply. However, no tools supporting Simple Function Point measurement have yet been proposed. In this paper, we aim at building a tool to facilitate SiFP measurement. Specifically, we propose to base the measurement on UML models of requirements, including use case diagrams and domain model (class diagrams). A set of guidelines for modeling domain model is proposed. The mapping rules between SiFP measure component and UML structure and measure rules under OO paradigm are defined, finally a tool is constructed. The proposed methodology –including a set of guidelines for domain modeling and the mapping between Simple Function Point measure components and UML elements– makes Simple Function Point measurement much easier to perform. In fact, the proposed methodology is usable in the early requirements definition stage, when only Use case diagram and the primary class diagram illustrating the domain model (including classes' names and relationship among classes) are available. We used 17 academic sample applications to validate our proposal: the result shows that our method and tool can be used to replace manual Simple Function Point measurement in the early phases of the software development cycle to measure the functional size of software project.

Pages: 39 to 45

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2016

Publication date: August 21, 2016

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-61208-498-5

Location: Rome, Italy

Dates: from August 21, 2016 to August 25, 2016