Human factors in requirements engineering:: A survey of human sciences literature relevant to the improvement of dependable systems development processes

Abstract

Requirements engineering (RE) is an inherently social process, involving the contribution of individuals working in an organizational context. Further, failures in the RE process will potentially lead to systematic failures in the products that are produced as a result. Consequently, the RE process for dependable systems development should itself be considered as a dependable process, and therefore subject to greater scrutiny for vulnerabilities to error. Research on human error has typically focused on the work of individual actors from a cognitive perspective. This paper presents a survey which broadens the view on what contributes to human error by also examining work from the social and organizational literature. This review was conducted to inform efforts to improve the systems development process for dependable systems, and in particular their requirements engineering process