Keen Ngee Loo’s research while affiliated with University of Malaya and other places

Design patterns provide a way to transfer design knowledge and reusable solutions to recurring problems. The patterns include structural and interaction information that, if captured in a catalog, can act as a useful reference guide for developers when making design decisions. However, for the same design pattern structure, there can be different ways for interactions to occur. We call these interaction variants, and they haven't yet been defined explicitly in existing work. This article introduces an approach to define the interaction variants that exist in design patterns as extensions to UML sequence diagrams. The authors have applied the approach on several commonly used patterns. The approach has proved useful for paving the way toward support for cataloging design pattern interactions and interaction variants in a visual modeling tool to be used during software design.

Designing software involves thinking about the solution for a design problem. Some of the ideas of design solution are captured in the form of descriptions and structures in design pattern. However, there is not much visual aid on the behaviour of a design pattern in a visual design modeling tool. Currently it is difficult to determine the design pattern roles and the interaction variants of a design pattern in an UML diagram as the design pattern information is not represented. This paper proposes a method to define and visualize the pattern roles and its interaction variants by extending the UML sequence diagram via UML Profile. An illustration of the usage of the extension is then shown for the observer design pattern. The benefit of the extension enables tool support on cataloging and retrieval of design patterns structural, behavioral information and variants in a visual design modeling tool.

There are various descriptions, structures and behavior on the solution for a design problem in a design pattern. However, there is not much visual aid on the internal workings of a design pattern in a visual design modeling tool. Currently, it is difficult to determine the pattern roles and variants of interaction groups of a design pattern as these information is not represented in the UML interaction diagram. There is a need to have a consistent way to define the pattern roles participating in a design pattern interaction and whether there is a variant in each interaction group. This paper proposes to extend the UML sequence diagram via UML profile to allow designers to define and visualise the pattern roles and the different types of interaction groups for a design pattern. The proposed extensions are able to capture the two ways of design pattern interaction variants in sequence diagram. An example of the approach is then applied to the observer design pattern. The benefit of the extension enables tool support on cataloguing and retrieval of design patterns' structural and behavioural information as well as variant in a visual design modeling tool.

Design patterns are known as a way for software designers to communicate about design. There are various descriptions, structures and behaviors on the solution for a design problem in a design pattern. However, there is not much visual aid on the internal workings of a design pattern in a visual design modeling tool. Currently, it is difficult to determine the pattern role and the variant of interaction groups of a design pattern in an UML diagram as the design pattern information is not represented in the interaction diagram. There is a need to have a consistent way to define the pattern role participating in a design pattern interaction and whether there is a variant in each interaction group. This paper proposes to extend the UML sequence diagram via UML profile to allow designers to define and visualize the pattern roles and the different types of interaction groups for a design pattern. An example of the approach is then applied to the observer design pattern. The benefit of the extension enables tool support on cataloging and retrieval of design patterns' structural and behavioral information as well as variant in a visual design modeling tool.