Effect of personality type on structured tool comprehension performance

Accurate understanding of software requirements by end users and software developers is important to ensure a high quality software product. While comprehension performance on systems analysis tools has been studied in the past, there is little research that examined the influence of personality type of an individual on his/her performance. This paper has two objectives. First, the research uncovers the relationships between personality types (introvert/extrovert, sensing/intuitive, feeling/thinking, and perceptive/judging) and comprehension performance (accuracy and speed) of users/developers using the structured tools: Decision Tables (DT), Nassi-Schneiderman Charts (NS) and Structured English (SE). Second, it examines the trade-offs between comprehension accuracy and speed for each personality type. Using laboratory experiments, we measured individual performance with the three structured tools. We found that introverts and feeling personalities comprehended more accurately with DT; thinking and intuitive personalities comprehended more accurately with NS and SE. The comprehension accuracy increased with time more for SE than for DT and NS. The results show the most suitable combinations of structured tools and personality types for high comprehension. The results also provide guidelines to managers with tight project schedules, such as structured tools that are easier/faster to understand and the matching personalities who can comprehend faster.