Improving Requirements Elicitation Research Articles

Improving requirements elicitation in large-scale software projects with reduced customer engagement: a proposed cost-effective model

Improving requirements elicitation in large-scale software projects with reduced customer engagement: a proposed cost-effective model

Artefact-based approach for improving social presence in e-learning

Requirements elicitation is an initial process in software development. This process is used to gather an accurate set of requirements in order to produce unambiguous system requirements for system developers. In developing e-learning, the element of social presence can help the students to socially interact and feel connected virtually. Thus, there is a need to improve requirements elicitation process by identifying social presence factors in e-learning. The objective of this paper is to improve requirements elicitation process through artefact-based approach in e-learning domain. Usability evaluation for the artefacts are carried out in study one, study two and study three by using multiphase method design. The artefact-based approach results prove that social presence requirements can be elicited and thus contribute to the knowledge of requirements engineering. The evaluation results also prove that artefact-based approach for social presence requirements is acceptable as the process for motivating social interaction in the e-learning domain.

Artefact-based approach for improving social presence in e-learning

Requirements elicitation is an initial process in software development. This process is used to gather an accurate set of requirements in order to produce unambiguous system requirements for system developers. In developing e-learning, the element of social presence can help the students to socially interact and feel connected virtually. Thus, there is a need to improve requirements elicitation process by identifying social presence factors in e-learning. The objective of this paper is to improve requirements elicitation process through artefact-based approach in e-learning domain. Usability evaluation for the artefacts are carried out in study one, study two and study three by using multiphase method design. The artefact-based approach results prove that social presence requirements can be elicited and thus contribute to the knowledge of requirements engineering. The evaluation results also prove that artefact-based approach for social presence requirements is acceptable as the process for motivating social interaction in the e-learning domain.

Persona logical thinking: improving requirements elicitation for multidisciplinary teams

To be more successful, innovation projects need a multidisciplinary team to cross and challenge several knowledge fields and viewpoints. However, defining methods to be used by multidisciplinary design teams is not straightforward since a single method has to match different skills and personality types. Our main objective is to provide a new method suitable to such multidisciplinary teams. The goal of Study 1 is to highlight that designers’ specialty (i.e. engineer or ergonomist) has an impact on methods’ effectiveness. For that purpose, we selected two methods for requirement elicitation, one that is generally used by engineers (a subset of EPMcreate method based on logical structure) and one commonly used by ergonomists (the Persona method based on empathetic reasoning). These methods were tested by 10 ergonomists and 10 engineers during individual sessions. We subsequently developed a method called Persona Logical Thinking (PLT) based on the combination of the two previous methods. This new method was tested in Study 2, and compared to Persona method and to EPMcreate method during collective sessions involving four designers each (engineers, industrial designers and ergonomists). Nine design teams took part in the study with a total of 36 participants. Our results suggest that PLT method draws on the advantages of both logical and empathetic reasoning since it is as productive as POEPMcreate method and as relevant as Persona method. It may therefore be more appropriate for multidisciplinary design teams.

Enhancing Analysts’ Mental Models for Improving Requirements Elicitation: A Two-stage Theoretical Framework and Empirical Results

Enhancing Analysts’ Mental Models for Improving Requirements Elicitation: A Two-stage Theoretical Framework and Empirical Results

Requirements Elicitation Problems: A Literature Analysis

Requirements elicitation is the process through which analysts determine the software requirements of stakeholders. Requirements elicitation is seldom well done, and an inaccurate or incomplete understanding of user requirements has led to the downfall of many software projects. This paper proposes a classification of problem types that occur in requirements elicitation. The classification has been derived from a literature analysis. Papers reporting on techniques for improving requirements elicitation practice were examined for the problem the technique was designed to address. In each classification the most recent or prominent techniques for ameliorating the problems are presented. The classification allows the requirements engineer to be sensitive to problems as they arise and the educator to structure delivery of requirements elicitation training.

Communication and traceability game: a way to improve requirements elicitation process teaching

Requirements elicitation process is important to guarantee the quality of software applications. In software engineering, requirements elicitation process has been taught by means of traditional methods. Games have been used to improve teaching of some issues in software engineering, but elicitation has not been the center of this way of teaching. As a way to deal with problems in requirements elicitation process teaching, we create in this paper "Communication and Traceability Game" and we summarize the results of applying this game to several groups of students.

A HCI technique for improving requirements elicitation

ContextTo develop usable software we need to understand the users that will interact with the system. Personas is a HCI technique that gathers information about users in order to comprehend their characteristics. This information is used to define fictitious persons on which development should focus. Personas provides an understanding of the user, often overlooked in SE developments. ObjectiveThe goal of our research is to modify Personas to readily build the technique into the requirements stage of regular SE developments. MethodWe tried to apply Cooper’s version of the Personas technique and we found shortcomings in both the definition of the procedure to be enacted and the formalization of the product resulting from the execution of each step of the Personas technique. For each of these limitations (up to a total of 11), we devised an improvement to be built into Personas. We have incorporated these improvements into a SE version of Personas. The improved Personas avoid the weaknesses encountered by an average software developer unfamiliar with HCI techniques applying the original Personas. ResultsWe aim to improve requirements elicitation through the use of Personas. We have systematized and formalized Personas in the SE tradition in order to build this new version of the technique into the requirements stage. We have applied our proposal in an application example. ConclusionThe integration of Personas into the SE requirements stage might improves the understanding of what the software product should do and how it should behave. We have modified the HCI Personas technique to comply with the levels of systematization required by SE. We have enriched the SE requirements process by incorporating Personas activities into requirements activities. Requirements elicitation and requirements analysis are the RE activities most affected by incorporating Personas.

Improving requirements elicitation: an empirical investigation of procedural prompts

Abstract. Information system success is dependent upon the effectiveness of requirements elicitation. Requirements elicitation is subject to numerous challenges, however, including cognitive limitations of analysts. In the present study, we test prompts designed to overcome the cognitive limitations that cause analysts to gather inadequate and inaccurate requirements. The study’s results indicate that providing analysts with procedural prompts to aid their requirements elicitation can result in the acquisition of additional meaningful requirements. In addition, the procedural prompts designed to mitigate cognitive challenges were significantly more effective than simple interrogatory prompts. Theoretical implications for the elicitation of requirements and practical implications for the training and practice of systems analysts are discussed.

Confessions of an information worker: a critical analysis of information requirements discourse

This paper seeks to demonstrate the benefit of critical discourse analysis as a research approach for examining information systems development. Research has shown that eliciting user requirements is a critical activity of information systems development. However, the requirements phase is not only a key activity, it is highly problematic. Requirements determination is considered a process fraught with conflicting, inconsistent and competing viewpoints in which users and analysts do not share a “consensual domain,” thus barring them from reaching agreements about requirements. Therefore, analytic tools that recognize and examine requirements analysis as a polyphonic interaction hold much promise for improving requirements elicitation and analysis. Critical discourse analysis offers the tools to examine systematically the fundamental substance of requirements elicitation — interactional talk. This analysis employs sociolinguistic methods for specifying the linguistic features of different types of discourse units and the way they are tied together to create meaning, but also concerns itself with critically examining social context. In this paper requirements elicitation takes on the form of a “confessional” act where the individual verbalizes thoughts, intentions and consciousness. Findings show that during this ritual, discourse is revealed as a dialectic between two different domains of meaning, that of analyst and client. Analysts, in their official roles, propose a “frame” which conflicts with that proposed by clients during interviews. Changes in frames and deft face-saving work during interviews function to discursively produce and challenge client identities. The paper explores the tension between the frames proposed by the analyst and client during interviews which explains some of the frustrations and “gaps” which characterize this type of encounter. Issues of power inequality, identity formation, and symbolic control are presented as explanations of why competing frames are proposed and sustained while resisted by clients.