Best Practice-based Evaluation of Software Engineering Tool Support: Collaborative Tool Support for Design, Data Modeling, Specification, and Automated Testing of Service Interfaces

摘要

Especially in complex software development projects, involving various actors and interaction interdependen-cies, the design of service interfaces is crucially important. In this work, a structured approach to support the design, specification and documentation of service interface standards is presented. To do so, we refer to a complex use case, dealing with the integration of multiple mobility services on a single platform. This endeavor requires the development of a large number of independently usable service interface standards which adhere to a multitude of quality aspects. A structured approach is required to speed up and simplify development and also to enable synergies between these service interfaces. In a previous work, we performed a requirements analysis to identify important aspects and shortcomings of the current development process and to elicit potential improvements. Starting with a first implementation of collaborative tool support for service interface development, we conducted a best practice-based evaluation with experts of the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV). In this paper, we want to present the results of this focus group-based evaluation and discuss their implications for the envisaged tool support for collaborative service interface development (design, data modeling, specification, and automated testing).