Archify: A Recommender System of Architectural Design Decisions

Abstract: Software architectures play a critical role in software quality assurance. However, small and medium companies (SMC) often suffer from the absence of professionals with skills and expertise in software architecture. That situation potentially affects the final quality of the software products and pressures projects budget with extra costs with consulting. This paper presents a recommender system of architectural design decisions called Archify. The goal is to support SMC companies in part of the effort of architecturally designing their products. Archify implements a wizard-styled interface that guides the developer or project manager through a set of specific questions. While the user answers these questions, Archify buffers a set of corresponding architectural decision recommendations. As the final result, the system recommends a set of architectural decisions matching the project's needs according to the requirements (as provided by the user) of the software under development. Nineteen professionals from academia and industry evaluated Archify through two surveys. The findings reveal that 94.7% of the participants approved Archify as a supporting tool. Respondents also highlighted the lack of tools supporting software architecture design, remarking the relevance of the proposed system.