A Semiotics-inspired Domain-Specific Modeling Language for Complex Event Processing Rules

Abstract: Complex Event Processing (CEP) is one technique used to the handling data flows. It allows pre-establishing conditions through rules and firing events when certain patterns are found in the data flows. Because the rules for defining such patterns are expressed with specific languages, users of these technologies must understand the underlying expression syntax. To reduce the complexity of writing CEP rules, some researchers are employing Domain Specific Modeling Language (DSML) to provide modelling through visual tools. However, existing approaches are ignoring some user design techniques that facilitate usability. Thus, resulting tools eventually has become more complexes for handling CEP than the conventional usage. Also, research on DSML tools targeting CEP does not present any evaluation around usability. This article proposes a DSML combined with visual notations techniques to create CEP rules with a more intuitive development model adapted for the non-expert user needs. The resulting tool was evaluated by non-expert users that were capable of easily creating CEP rules without prior knowledge of the underlying expression language.