Evaluating a formal KBS specification language

Formal specification languages can improve the development of knowledge-based systems, but several problems limit their usefulness. (ML)/sup 2/, a formal language based on the knowledge models used in the CommonKADS KBS development method, avoids many of these problems. We describe a study that investigated the usability of a formal KBS modeling language, (ML)/sup 2/. To analyze (ML)/sup 2/ usability, we first designed a set of evaluation criteria. Then we performed a small case study, constructing an expertise model in (ML)/sup 2/, to test and refine these criteria. Subsequently, we used (ML)/sup 2/ to construct a second model, which formed the basis for our language evaluation. Altogether, we performed three case studies, which we used to score (ML)/sup 2/ with our evaluation criteria.