Is the derivation of a model easier to understand than the model itself?

Software architectures can be presented by graphs with components as nodes and connectors as edges. These graphs, or models, typically encode expert domain knowledge, which makes them difficult to understand. Hence, instead of presenting a complete complex model, we can derive it from a simple, easy-to-understand model by a set of easy-to-understand transformations. In two controlled experiments, we evaluate whether a derivation of a model is easier to understand than the model itself.