The Visual Inheritance Structure to Support the Design of Visual Notations

It is a common practice in modelling languages to provide their users with a set of visual notations as a representation of semantic constructs. The use of visual notation is believed to help communicate complex information, especially when communicating with non-technical users. Therefore, research in the design of visual notation continues to evolve, e.g. research to provide an effective and efficient design approach. There are approaches exist to support the designer in designing the visual notation such as the Cognitive Dimensions and the Physics of Notations. As the current metamodeling approach is widely adopted as a mechanism for improving standardisation and interoperability in modelling languages, it is important to provide a guideline that focus on the design of visual notation for a predefined metamodel. In this paper, we address the visual inheritance structure to support the design of visual notations for a predefined metamodel. This approach emphasises the design coherence between classes and sub-classes. To demonstrate that it is possible to apply our approach, we use part of the OMG Structured Assurance Case Metamodel as a case study.