Declarative process models allow us to capture the behavior of a business process through temporal constraints on the evolution of process activities. In process mining, declarative process discovery focuses on deriving these constraints from event logs. Although the semantic aspects of declarative processes have been extensively investigated, there has been less focus on designing declarative visual notations that enhance model understanding and support analysts in solving process mining tasks. To improve the human understandability of declarative process models, in this paper, we present easyDeclare , a novel visual notation to specify declarative process models using the Declare language. easyDeclare was developed with consideration of the well-established Moody’s design principles. We conducted extensive user experiments to demonstrate that easyDeclare , when compared with the original graphical representation of Declare , reduces the cognitive load required to interpret Declare models of increasing complexity, making it a promising alternative to enhancing overall comprehension of declarative process discovery tasks.

Improving the understandability of declarative process discovery results using easyDeclare / Blasilli, G.; Ferro, L. S.; Lenti, S.; Maggi, F. M.; Marrella, A.; Catarci, T.. - In: INFORMATION SYSTEMS. - ISSN 0306-4379. - 138:(2026). [10.1016/j.is.2025.102667]

Improving the understandability of declarative process discovery results using easyDeclare

Blasilli G.;Ferro L. S.;Lenti S.;Maggi F. M.;Marrella A.
;
Catarci T.
2026

Abstract

Declarative process models allow us to capture the behavior of a business process through temporal constraints on the evolution of process activities. In process mining, declarative process discovery focuses on deriving these constraints from event logs. Although the semantic aspects of declarative processes have been extensively investigated, there has been less focus on designing declarative visual notations that enhance model understanding and support analysts in solving process mining tasks. To improve the human understandability of declarative process models, in this paper, we present easyDeclare , a novel visual notation to specify declarative process models using the Declare language. easyDeclare was developed with consideration of the well-established Moody’s design principles. We conducted extensive user experiments to demonstrate that easyDeclare , when compared with the original graphical representation of Declare , reduces the cognitive load required to interpret Declare models of increasing complexity, making it a promising alternative to enhancing overall comprehension of declarative process discovery tasks.
2026
Declare; Design principles; easyDeclare visual notation; Process modeling languages; Understandability of declarative process discovery results
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
Improving the understandability of declarative process discovery results using easyDeclare / Blasilli, G.; Ferro, L. S.; Lenti, S.; Maggi, F. M.; Marrella, A.; Catarci, T.. - In: INFORMATION SYSTEMS. - ISSN 0306-4379. - 138:(2026). [10.1016/j.is.2025.102667]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1764682
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