User Requirements Elicitation Research Articles

A qualitative study to elicit user requirements for lower limb wearable exoskeletons for gait rehabilitation in spinal cord injury

ObjectiveWe aim to determine a comprehensive set of requirements, perceptions, and expectations that people with spinal cord injury (SCI) and the clinicians in charge of their rehabilitation have regarding the use of wearable robots (WR) for gait rehabilitation.BackgroundThere are concerns due to the limited user acceptance of WR for gait rehabilitation. Developers need to emphasize understanding the needs and constraints of all stakeholders involved, including the real-life dynamics of rehabilitation centers.Methods15 people with SCI, 9 without experience with WR and 6 with experience with these technologies, and 10 clinicians from 3 rehabilitation centers in Spain were interviewed. A directed content analysis approach was used.Results78 codes grouped into 9 categories (physical results, usability, psychology-related codes, technical characteristics, activities, acquisition issues, context of use, development of the technologies and clinical rehabilitation context) were expressed by at least 20% of the users interviewed, of whom 16 were not found in the literature. The agreement percentage between each group and subgroup included in the study, calculated as the number of codes that more than 20% of both groups expressed, divided over the total amount of codes any of those two groups agreed on (≥ 20%), showed limited agreement between patients and clinicians (50.00%) and between both types of patients (55.77%). The limited accessibility and availability of lower limb exoskeletons for gait rehabilitation arose in most of the interviews.ConclusionsThe limited agreement percentage between patients and clinicians indicates that including both types of users in the design process of these technologies is important, given that their requirements are complementary. Engaging users with prior technology experience is recommended, as they often exhibit strong internal consensus and articulate well-defined requirements. This study adds up the knowledge available in the literature and the new codes found in our data, which enlighten important aspects that ought to be addressed in the field to develop technologies that respond to users’ needs, are usable and feasible to implement in their intended contexts.ApplicationThe set of criteria summarized in our study will be useful to guide the design, development, and evaluation of WR for gait rehabilitation to meet user’s needs and allow them to be implemented in their intended context of use.

The role of online marketing to engage healthcare workers with infection prevention and control information and resources: A pilot study.

The successful adoption and application of infection prevention and control (IPC) principles in all healthcare settings is dependent on the degree to which healthcare workers (HCWs) are aware of the requirements, have access to program resources and information, and engage with the IPC program. This study investigates the impact of redesigning the Infection Control Department (ICD) intranet site based on user feedback followed by a targeted marketing campaign to improve website usability, awareness, and access. In this systematic study, we used a survey plus two focus group interviews to elicit user requirements for the content and look of the ICD intranet page and identify the best communication platforms to use for the marketing campaign to launch the redesigned intranet page. The information was used to redesign the intranet page and develop the marketing campaign. The survey was repeated post-intervention and these results, along with a comparison of website analytics monitoring traffic, were used to determine the success of the intervention. The ICD intranet page redesign increased the information and resources. Post-intervention survey results demonstrated a significant improvement in user satisfaction including ease of navigation and access to IPC information and resources. The marketing campaign resulted in a significant increase in website traffic to the ICD intranet page, demonstrating enhanced engagement with HCWs. This study demonstrated that website redesign based on user feedback, combined with a marketing campaign, can increase the traffic to the website and improve the user experience when accessing and navigating the site making the information and resources more accessible to HCWs.

UNISON framework for user requirement elicitation and classification of smart product-service system

Smart product-service system (smart PSS) has become the manufacturers’ new revenue and sustainable competitiveness sources with the rise of digital servitization. To configure a customer-tailored smart PSS effectively, requirement analysis plays a significant role. Till now, the heterogeneity feature of smart PSS requirements, the usage of user-generated data, and data-driven paradigm have not been considered sufficiently. Hence, this study develops a UNISON framework based on the integration of deep learning approaches for eliciting and evaluating the user requirements for smart PSS with a systematic process, data-driven manner, and quantitative results. Adopting the user-centric perspective, this study employed massive user online reviews as the niche for requirement analysis. The bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) neural network and bi-term topic model (BTM) were employed to extract and elicit the smart PSS requirements in both product and service aspects. Further, a multi-dimensional and automatic requirement evaluation method integrating the sentiment analysis, IPA-Kano model, and opportunity algorithm was proposed for assessing, classifying, and prioritizing the identified requirement items. A smart PSS requirement landscape map was also developed to present the analysis results visually and guide decision-making. An empirical study has been conducted for the smart cleaning robot service system to prove the feasibility of the suggested approach. Enabled by the hybrid application of big data analytics and deep learning techniques, this study can empower the smart PSS provider to understand the user requirements comprehensively and upgrade the smart PSS design effectively.

Evaluation of open-ended, clustering, and discrete choice methods for user requirements development in a low-income country context

High quality user requirements are positively correlated with successful design outcomes, but engaging stakeholders within low-income contexts can present financial and time-related challenges to product developers from non-local industrial and academic institutions with limited knowledge of the context. Existing literature provides guidance for engaging stakeholders during the early stages of product design in high-income country contexts, but few studies have examined the effectiveness of these methods in low-income country contexts. This study evaluated three user requirements elicitation and prioritization methods including open-ended, clustering, and discrete choice. Ghanaian healthcare delivery stakeholders with varying types of expertise, years of experience, and from various types of healthcare facilities were recruited to allow for diversity of responses. Participants included physicians (n = 10), nurses/midwives (n = 16), biomedical technicians (n = 14), and public health officers (n = 7). A hypothetical mechanical device for managing and treating postpartum hemorrhage was chosen to characterize each method's ability to elicit and prioritize user requirements. The open-ended method captured general requirements of a design concept, yet resulted in predominantly generic requirements. The results from the open-ended method were used to inform the clustering and discrete choice methods. The clustering and discrete choice methods were useful for inferring in-depth user requirements and eliciting stakeholder priorities. The clustering method revealed that usability and affordability were high-priority requirements among all four stakeholder groups. An individual difference scaling analysis was performed using the clustering method outcomes, which indirectly identified ease-of-use, availability, and effectiveness as the priority user requirements categories. Stakeholders ranked ease-of-use as the highest-priority user requirement, followed by performance, cost, and place-of-origin requirements, using the discrete choice method. Given the significance of the ease-of-use requirement, an analytical framework based on sub-requirements was developed for quantifying stakeholder needs. Lastly, the relative merits of the three elicitation approaches and their implications for use with different stakeholder groups were examined.

Prototyping to elicit user requirements for product development: Using head-mounted augmented reality when designing interactive devices

Designers of interactive devices are challenged by the need to accurately elicit user requirements from low-cost prototypes at the early stages of the design process. Head-mounted augmented reality (AR) can potentially assist in this process by economically representing physical-digital blended features with relatively high-fidelity prototypes. To explore this potential, we present and evaluate a head-mounted AR-enhanced hybrid prototyping system created in the context of a fan product development process. We conducted a mixed-methods study comparing the AR-enhanced prototyping method with a conventional prototyping method. The results reveal that the AR system can elicit similar user requirements as the conventional prototyping method with an improved overall experience.

Guidelines for user requirements elicitation in design for assistive technology: a shower chair case study

A substantial proportion of the world population currently lives with some functional limitation that directly affects their daily lives. In this context, the prescription of assistive technology has been fundamental in promoting an individual's independence, social inclusion, and well-being. However, high abandonment rates of these devices have been reported and are commonly associated with the non-correspondence to personal needs. Designing customized and personalized products, especially for multidisciplinary applications, requires levels of systematization and user participation that are not well addressed by traditional methods. This paper introduces customization-based guidelines for requirements elicitation integrated with the House of Quality matrix and assistive technology assessment protocols. The proposition was based on clinical evidence, research experiences, a literature review, and a theoretical model. A shower chair case study was conducted with twelve users to demonstrate the approach's potential during the task planning and clarification stage. The strategy allowed the systematic identification of the central sources of dissatisfaction and the definition and prioritizing of user requirements in a multidisciplinary domain. The procedure led to analyzing demands that had not been initially conceived by the engineering team while also providing communication facilitators between the different knowledge domains and incorporating participatory design elements into the early stages.

Participatory user requirements elicitation, validation, and prioritization for tele-otology app in deprived populations

BackgroundThe timely and accurate diagnosis of ENT (Ear, Nose, and throat) diseases in deprived areas is very important due to the increased burden of the disease in high-risk populations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify, validate and prioritize the information needs of stakeholders of a tele-otology system for diagnosing ear diseases and to provide a solution. Material and methodsIn this study, to identify the information need of the stakeholders and prioritize them, the spiral-iterative model was used. Data were obtained through direct observation, interviews with 23 stakeholders (6 ENT specialist doctors, 3 health center managers, 2 patients, and 12 health facilitators), and a survey among all ENT specialists and residents (n = 49), working in Kerman province, Iran. Finally, based on the study findings, the important information needs of the stakeholders were considered as the input for developing the tele-otology software. ResultsIn the observation phase, the workflow of the tele-otology system was developed. In the interview phase, 4 main themes including patient information; Technology and communication; Policy, guidelines, and requirements; Facilitator skills and knowledge were determined. In total, the four categories of the iterative-spiral model including strategic, patient information, commercial and technical with 8, 9, 3, and 9 sub-categories, respectively, were prioritized by specialists which were considered as input for system development. ConclusionBy applying the spiral-iterative model, the prototype included a mobile app and server system was developed. In the final solution, the possibility of capturing patient history and video images was provided for facilitators to help physicians in effective diagnosis. The results of this study, while identifying the workflow of service providers and determining their information needs can help telemedicine system developers to have an optimal design when designing systems for the diagnosis of ear disease.

Integrating User Stories in the Design of Augmented Reality Application

Agile development methodology has become popular among software developers. Some non-agile developers integrate certain agile and design thinking practices in their development. Among these practices include identifying personas, creating empathy and journey maps and writing user stories. This research adopts the Design Science Research Methodology, focusing on integrating agile and design thinking practices in generating quality user stories in the design of augmented reality (AR) applications. An integrated development process is modelled and applied in an example application, an AR application for student welfare services events. The study goes through the process of eliciting user requirements by identifying user personas, creating empathy maps and customer journeys and writing user stories as part of the discovery stage of the AR application development. The user stories are evaluated by fifteen agile practitioners based on fourteen criteria adapted from Quality User Story Framework. The user stories are scored and assessed to determine the level of quality.

Gaining insight for the design, development, deployment and distribution of assistive navigation systems for blind and visually impaired people through a detailed user requirements elicitation

Gaining insight for the design, development, deployment and distribution of assistive navigation systems for blind and visually impaired people through a detailed user requirements elicitation

Knowledge-based engineering approach for defining robotic manufacturing system architectures

Robotic manufacturing systems have proven to be an effective solution for modern manufacturing enterprises to deal with increasing in customer demands and market competition. However, these systems may be unable to completely satisfy user requirements because of the difference between user and design perspectives. Thus, designing robotic manufacturing systems requires iterative processes that significantly increase development costs and lead time. A user-customised design approach is needed that enables users to customise robotic manufacturing systems as well as alleviate the burden on designers of eliciting user requirements. However, most users may not be able to customise their systems because of a lack of engineering knowledge. The authors propose a knowledge-based engineering approach to aid users in customising the architectures of robotic manufacturing systems. Two models — an ontological knowledge model and a multi-attribute decision-making model — are defined and integrated in the proposed KBE architecture definition method. A rule-based reasoning process is proposed in the ontological knowledge model based on explicit semantic descriptions of users’ unstructured or semi-structured requirements and the components of robotic manufacturing systems, which infers the possible architecture of the required system. The MADM model is adopted to evaluate the architecture alternatives to determine the optimal solution.

Creating a Digital Toolkit to Reduce Fatigue and Promote Quality of Life in Multiple Sclerosis: Participatory Design and Usability Study.

BackgroundFatigue is one of the most common and debilitating symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS), experienced by more than 80% of people with MS. FACETS (Fatigue: Applying Cognitive Behavioral and Energy Effectiveness Techniques to Lifestyle) is an evidence-based, face-to-face, 6-session group fatigue management program for people with MS. Homework tasks are an integral part of FACETS and are currently undertaken in a paper-based form. Feedback from a consultation undertaken with FACETS attendees and health care professionals with experience in delivering the FACETS program suggested that being able to complete the homework tasks digitally would be desirable, potentially enhancing engagement and adherence and enabling on-the-go access to fit into busy lifestyles. Relative to other long-term conditions, there are few apps specifically for MS and, of those available, many have been developed with little or no input from people with MS.ObjectiveThe purpose of this mixed methods study was to create a digital toolkit comprising the homework tasks (eg, activity diary, goal planner, thought diary) of the FACETS program for people with MS, considering end users’ unique requirements throughout the design, build, prototyping, and testing stages.MethodsPhase 1 involved the elicitation of detailed user requirements for the toolkit via 2 focus groups with previous attendees of FACETS (n=3 and n=6) and wireframing. Phase 2 involved supervised usability testing with people with MS (n=11) with iterative prototyping. The usability sessions involved going through test scenarios using the FACETS toolkit on an Android test phone with video capture and concurrent think-aloud followed by completion of the System Usability Scale (SUS) and a semistructured interview collecting feedback about design, content, and functionality.ResultsThe mean SUS score for the digital toolkit was 74.3 (SD 16.8, 95% CI 63.2-85.6; range 37.5-95), which equates to an adjective rating of good and a B grade (70th-79th percentile range) on the Sauro-Lewis curved grading scale. A number of usability and design issues (such as simplifying overall screen flow to better meet users’ needs) and suggestions for improvements (such as using location-based services and displaying personalized information and progress via a central dashboard) were addressed and implemented during the usability testing cycle.ConclusionsThis work highlights the importance of the participation of people with MS across the entire development cycle, working to a human-centered design methodology to enable a considered and MS-centered solution to be developed. Continued horizon scanning for emergent technological enhancements will enable us to identify opportunities for further improvements to the FACETS toolkit prior to launch. The toolkit supports self-monitoring and management of fatigue and has potential applicability to other long-term conditions where fatigue is a significant issue.

Development of a Perioperative Medication-Related Clinical Decision Support Tool to Prevent Medication Errors: An Analysis of User Feedback.

Medication use in the perioperative setting presents many patient safety challenges that may be improved with electronic clinical decision support (CDS). The objective of this paper is to describe the development and analysis of user feedback for a robust, real-time medication-related CDS application designed to provide patient-specific dosing information and alerts to warn of medication errors in the operating room (OR). We designed a novel perioperative medication-related CDS application in four phases: (1) identification of need, (2) alert algorithm development, (3) system design, and (4) user interface design. We conducted group and individual design feedback sessions with front-line clinician leaders and subject matter experts to gather feedback about user requirements for alert content and system usability. Participants were clinicians who provide anesthesia (attending anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and house staff), OR pharmacists, and nurses. We performed two group and eight individual design feedback sessions, with a total of 35 participants. We identified 20 feedback themes, corresponding to 19 system changes. Key requirements for user acceptance were: Use hard stops only when necessary; provide as much information as feasible about the rationale behind alerts and patient/clinical context; and allow users to edit fields such as units, time, and baseline values (e.g., baseline blood pressure). We incorporated user-centered design principles to build a perioperative medication-related CDS application that uses real-time patient data to provide patient-specific dosing information and alerts. Emphasis on early user involvement to elicit user requirements, workflow considerations, and preferences during application development can result in time and money efficiencies and a safer and more usable system.

Building the Central Regional Education Data Warehouse

This paper seeks to build a data warehouse for the central region directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES). The project deployed the top-down approach by relying on the hub and spoke architecture based on a Joint Application Development (JAD) session organized to elicit user requirements. Again, dependent data marts, as well as the star schema, were chosen due to their uniqueness and appropriateness for the project. There were, however, some shortcomings involving data quality, efficiency, user acceptance, and cost. The data warehouse project, however, helped to improve management decision-making in terms of tracking, quality and efficiency in resource and logistics use, as well as predicting growth in the near future.

User requirements elicitation in web-based Participatory Geographic Information System interface design

This ongoing work is aimed to collect a set of specific user requirements to develop a participatory web-based Geographic Information System using the User Centered Design approach. By using several techniques of requirement specification as the part of the User Centered Design such as observation of user behavior, interview session and paper prototyping design for testing user interaction, this initial stage in the development of the application could identify the important features to increase the usability of the application. These key features needed by the user are divided into three categories; the type of available maps, the data input features, and the data management features. The categories founded will help the system developer prioritize the important features to create an application to support spatial-based planning and to support the coordination between government agencies in Banda Aceh Municipality.

KardiaSoft Architecture - A Software Supporting Diagnosis and Therapy Monitoring of Heart Failure Patients Exploiting Saliva Biomarkers.

The aim of this work is to present the architecture of the KardiaSoft software, a clinical decision support tool allowing the healthcare professionals to monitor patients with heart failure by providing useful information and suggestions in terms of the estimation of the presence of heart failure (heart failure diagnosis), stratification-patient profiling, long term patient condition evaluation and therapy response monitoring. KardiaSoft is based on predictive modeling techniques that analyze data that correspond to four saliva biomarkers, measured by a point-of-care device, along with other patient's data. The KardiaSoft is designed based on the results of a user requirements elicitation process. A small clinical scale study with 135 subjects and an early clinical study with 90 subjects will take place in order to build and validate the predictive models, respectively.

A reference model-based user requirements elicitation process: Toward operational business-IT alignment in a co-creation value network

Abstract Context To improve operational business-IT alignment (BITA), the development of IT-based systems should be derived from business requirements. However, the requirements elicitation process is challenging and encounters several problems which might lead to acquiring low-quality user requirements and failure of systems development projects. Many of elicitation problems are also identified as being relevant in the BITA literature. We focus on one category of well-known elicitation problems, such as communication flaws. Until now, the majority of requirements elicitation studies with the aim of addressing operational BITA are based on an asking strategy. This elicitation strategy is suitable for relatively stable situations. To compensate for the limitation of this strategy in a more complex situation, e.g., a co-creation value network (VN) setting, using it in conjunction with other elicitation strategies is more likely to yield satisfactory results. Objective To contribute to operational BITA improvement in a VN setting by addressing one category of elicitation problems. For this purpose, we design and evaluate a reference model-based approach to facilitate the user requirements elicitation process. Method Two-phase research according to the design science approach is followed. In the design phase, a reference model-based user requirements elicitation process is designed. Also, as a proof of concept, two instances of this artifact are designed. Two reference models, respectively, describing customer knowledge management processes and customer knowledge management challenges in a VN setting are used separately in designing these two instances. In the evaluation phase, the applicability and usefulness of these instances are evaluated in two separate studies. Results A reference model supports asking-based user requirements elicitation process via a Delphi method in a complex context of a VN. It improves the user requirements elicitation process by addressing a set of recognized elicitation problems. Conclusions The reference model-based approach, by addressing the elicitation problems, contributes to user requirements elicitation process improvement in general and to a better operational BITA in the complex situation of a VN in particular.

A grounded theory approach to security policy elicitation

PurposeIn this paper, the authors consider how qualitative research techniques that are used in applied psychology to understand a person’s feelings and needs provides a means to elicit their security needs.Design/methodology/approachRecognizing that the codes uncovered during a grounded theory analysis of semi-structured interview data can be interpreted as policy attributes, the paper develops a grounded theory-based methodology that can be extended to elicit attribute-based access control style policies. In this methodology, user-participants are interviewed and machine learning is used to build a Bayesian network-based policy from the subsequent (grounded theory) analysis of the interview data.FindingsUsing a running example – based on a social psychology research study centered around photograph sharing – the paper demonstrates that in principle, qualitative research techniques can be used in a systematic manner to elicit security policy requirements.Originality/valueWhile in principle qualitative research techniques can be used to elicit user requirements, the originality of this paper is a systematic methodology and its mapping into what is actionable, that is, providing a means to generate a machine-interpretable security policy at the end of the elicitation process.

ANALYSIS OF USER REQUIREMENTS FOR A MOBILE AUGMENTED REALITY APPLICATION TO SUPPORT LITERACY DEVELOPMENT AMONGST HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN

Literacy is fundamental for children’s growth and development, as it impacts their educational, societal, and vocational progress. However, the mapping of language to printed text is different for children with hearing impairments. When reading, a hearing-impaired child maps text to sign language (SL) which is a visual language that can benefit from technological advancements, such as augmented reality (AR). There exist several efforts that utilise AR for the purpose of advancing the educational needs of people who are hearing impaired for different SLs. Nevertheless, only a few directly elicit the visual needs of children who are hearing impaired. This study aims to address this gap in the literature with a series of user studies to elicit user requirements for the development of an AR application that supports the literacy development of Arab children who are hearing impaired. Three instruments were utilised in these user studies, each targeting a different group of literacy influencers: questionnaires issued to parents of children with hearing impairments, interviews with teachers, and observations of children who were deaf or hard of hearing. The findings indicated that the parents and teachers preferred Arabic SL (ArSL), pictures, and videos, whereas the children struggled with ArSL and preferred finger-spelling. These preferences highlighted the importance of integrating various resources to strengthen the written Arabic and ArSL literacy of Arab children. The findings have contributed to the literature on the preferences of Arab children who are hearing impaired, their educators, and parents. They also showed the importance of establishing requirements elicited directly from intended users who are disabled to proactively support their learning process. The results of the study were used in the preliminary development of Word & Sign, an AR mobile application intended to aid Arab children who are hearing impaired in their linguistic development.

Eliciting user requirements for e-collaboration systems: a proposal for a multi-perspective modeling approach

E-collaboration systems have become a new way of doing business that supports and enables communication, coordination and cooperation between people in shared projects and so on. Yet, eliciting user requirements for e-collaboration systems has proved to be a great challenge, due to the need to capture different knowledge for many different types of stakeholder. This paper proposes an approach for eliciting user requirements for e-collaboration systems. This approach takes a scenario description of e-collaboration systems as input and transforms it into a rich set of four-perspective requirement models, namely Coordination Model, Communication Model, Connection Model, and Collaboration Model. These models, respectively, represent the coordination, communication, connection, and collaboration characteristics of e-collaboration systems. Collectively, these models aim to provide a more complete and accurate requirements specification. An example from a collaborative office system is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach. This paper also discusses practical implications of the proposed approach and then provides an assessment for the proposed approach.

Eliciting User Requirements to Design a Prediabetes Self-care Application: A Focus Group Study with Prediabetics and Diabetics

Eliciting User Requirements to Design a Prediabetes Self-care Application: A Focus Group Study with Prediabetics and Diabetics