Improving the understandability of declarative process discovery results using easyDeclare

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.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Information Systems
Published
2025-12-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2025.102667
Primary Topic
Business Process Modeling and Analysis
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

Improving the understandability of declarative process discovery results using easyDeclare

Graziano Blasilli, Andrea Marrella, Lauren S. Ferro, Simone Lenti et al.
Information Systems
Business Process Modeling and Analysis
article

Improving the understandability of declarative process discovery results using easyDeclare

Graziano Blasilli, Andrea Marrella, Lauren S. Ferro, Simone Lenti, Tiziana Catarci, Fabrizio Maria Maggi
article en

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.

Information SystemsVol. 138
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (IT), RMIT University (AU), Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
Openalex Percentile: Top 26%
Business Process Modeling and Analysis
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.

Improving the understandability of declarative process discovery results using easyDeclare — Graziano Blasilli, Andrea Marrella, et al. · Information Systems (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS