Enhancement in Function Point Analysis

Early and accurate estimation of software size plays an important role in facilitating effort and cost estimation of software systems. One of the commonly used methodologies for software size estimation is Function Point Analysis (FPA). The purpose of Software size estimation and effort estimation techniques is to provide a useful measure of the software complexities, efforts, and costs involved in software development. Despite almost three decades of research on software estimation, the research community has yet not able to provide a reliable estimation model for End-User Development (EUD) environments. EUD essentially out-sources development effort to the end user. Hence one element of the size and effort is the additional design time expended in end-user programming. This paper discusses the concept end-user programming and enhancement of FPA by adding end-user programming as an additional General System Characteristic (GSC).