Requirements Analysts Research Articles

Usefulness of open domain model for identifying missing software requirements concepts

SummaryDetecting missing requirements during software development is crucial to avoid unexpected consequences. However, this task is challenging due to limited domain knowledge of requirements analysts and the dynamic nature of software requirements. Previous studies have shown that requirement‐oriented domain models can help identify omissions in requirements, but they are often incomplete for many domains. Meanwhile, domain models constructed from other artifacts are available online. This raises the question: Can these domain models be useful in identifying missing functional information in requirement specifications? To address this question, we conducted a study to measure the overlap between entities in domain models and requirements. We analyzed the occurrence of overlapped entities, considering four distribution characteristics: the type of entities in the domain model, the distribution of mapped entities in the domain model, the family belonging of the mapped entities in the domain model, and the distribution of mapped entities in the requirements. Based on our findings, we proposed recommendations for missing requirements. Additionally, we performed experiments, including the use of the proposed metric “ancestors of the highest level with the most mapped entities” (AHME). The results showed significant improvements with gains of 146% and 223% in the two domains, highlighting the benefits of these distribution characteristics.

Effect of Requirements Analyst Experience on Elicitation Effectiveness: A Family of Quasi-Experiments

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Context.</i> In software engineering there is a widespread assumption that experience improves requirements analyst effectiveness, although empirical studies demonstrate the opposite. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Aim.</i> Determine whether experience (interviews, eliciting, development, professional) influences requirements elicitation using interviews. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Method.</i> We ran 12 quasi-experiments recruiting 124 subjects in which we measured analyst effectiveness as the number of items (i.e., concepts, rules, processes) correctly elicited. The experimental task was to elicit requirements using the open interview technique followed by the consolidation of the elicited information in domains with which the analysts were and were not familiar. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results.</i> In unfamiliar domains, interview experience, requirements experience, development experience, and professional experience does not have any relationship with analyst effectiveness. In familiar domains, effectiveness varies depending on the type of experience. Interview experience has a positive effect, whereas professional experience has a moderate negative effect. Requirements experience appears to have a moderately positive effect; however, the statistical power of the analysis is insufficient to be able to confirm this point. Development experience has no effect. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusion.</i> Experience impacts analyst effectiveness differently depending on the problem domain type (familiar, unfamiliar). Generally, experience does not account for all the observed variability in effectiveness, so there are other influential factors.

User interface modeling technique in the cloud environment

For designing a qualified user interface, there needs to be a graphic expert, requirement analyst, system designer, programmer, technical expertise, social activity scientist, and experts for each field. However, it is extremely difficult for these various experts to participate in such user interface design. This paper focused on design rules and modeling techniques of user interfaces that can support user availability. The visual cohesion of business events can be improved by modeling the prototype of the object-oriented user interface based on the object. The clustering method uses transaction objects and forms objects based on business event objects and task objects. We have studied it in detail so that a prototype of the user interface can be created. The significance and conclusions of this study are as follows. First, visual cohesion is improved by designing the object of functional, sequential, and communicative objects. Second, the object design rules of the user interface were created so that even an inexperienced designer could create a high-quality prototype. Third, it enhances the user's preference, ease, understanding, compliance rate, and quality of graphic layout by improving object-based visual cohesion. Fourth, functional, sequential, communicative, and procedural cohesion of business events is increased by the clustering of user interface objects. As a result, this paper is providing a modeling method of user interface technique in the cloud environment that could enhance the visual cohesion of user interface prototypes.

How do requirements evolve during elicitation? An empirical study combining interviews and app store analysis

Requirements are elicited from the customer and other stakeholders through an iterative process of interviews, prototyping, and other interactive sessions. Then, requirements can be further extended, based on the analysis of the features of competing products available on the market. Understanding how this process takes place can help to identify the contribution of the different elicitation phases, thereby allowing requirements analysts to better distribute their resources. In this work, we empirically study in which way requirements get transformed from initial ideas into documented needs, and then evolve based on the inspiration coming from similar products. To this end, we select 30 subjects that act as requirements analysts, and we perform interview-based elicitation sessions with a fictional customer. After the sessions, the analysts produce a first set of requirements for the system. Then, they are required to search similar products in the app stores and extend the requirements, inspired by the identified apps. The requirements documented at each step are evaluated, to assess to which extent and in which way the initial idea evolved throughout the process. Our results show that only between 30% and 38% of the requirements produced after the interviews include content that can be fully traced to initial customer’s ideas. The rest of the content is dedicated to new requirements, and up to 21% of it belongs to completely novel topics. Furthermore, up to 42% of the requirements inspired by the app stores cover additional features compared to the ones identified after the interviews. The results empirically show that requirements are not elicited in strict sense, but actually co-created through interviews, with analysts playing a crucial role in the process. In addition, we show evidence that app store-inspired elicitation can be particularly beneficial to complete the requirements.

ReqSpecOnto: Investigating Explicit Software Requirements Specification

Specification of customer's need as software requirements in natural language create ambiguities in requirements and may also lead to failure of the software project. Generally, customers are unable to define their needs due to lack of domain understanding, technological constraints and knowledge gap between stakeholders and requirements analysts. One of the most effective approaches to minimize these gaps and ambiguities is the usage of ontologies for requirements specification and validation. However, the current approaches are mostly limited only to the translation of ambiguous software requirements. In this paper, we have discussed, analyzed and compared the current usage of these ontologies and found that these approaches are time-consuming and create complexities in the overall development process. We have presented a requirements specification ontology (ReqSpecOnto), bypassing the need for creating an ambiguous Software Requirement Specification (SRS). The upper software requirements ontology is defined in Ontology Web Language (OWL) that can be applied in different software scenarios. A case study of budget and planning system for a state physics lab is selected to specify its requirements as derived ontology from the upper ontology created. Results are validated through HermiT and Pellet reasoners to verify defined relationships and constraints. Finally, SPARQL queries are used to obtain the necessary requirements.

Analyzing privacy policies through syntax-driven semantic analysis of information types

Several government laws and app markets, such as Google Play, require the disclosure of app data practices to users. These data practices constitute critical privacy requirements statements, since they underpin the app’s functionality while describing how various personal information types are collected, used, and with whom they are shared. Abstract and ambiguous terminology in requirements statements concerning information types (e.g., “we collect your device information”), can reduce shared understanding among app developers, policy writers, and users. To address this challenge, we propose a syntax-driven method that first parses a given information type phrase (e.g. mobile device identifier) into its constituents using a context-free grammar and second infers semantic relationships between constituents using semantic rules. The inferred semantic relationships between a given phrase and its constituents generate a hierarchy that models the generality and ambiguity of phrases. Through this method, we infer relations from a lexicon consisting of a set of information type phrases to populate a partial ontology. The resulting ontology is a knowledge graph that can be used to guide requirements authors in the selection of the most appropriate information type terms. We evaluate the method’s performance using two criteria: (1) expert assessment of relations between information types; and (2) non-expert preferences for relations between information types. The results suggest performance improvement when compared to a previously proposed method. We also evaluate the reliability of the method considering the information types extracted from different data practices (e.g., collection, usage, sharing, etc.) in privacy policies for mobile or web-based apps in various app domains. The method achieves average of 89% precision and 87% recall considering information types from various app domains and data practices. Due to these results, we conclude that the method can be generalized reliably in inferring relations and reducing the ambiguity and abstraction in privacy policies. • Abstract terms in privacy policies reduce shared understanding among stakeholders. • Ontology is a knowledge graph containing information types and semantic relations. • Ontology guides requirements analysts in the selection of the most appropriate terms. • Ontology help reduce the abstraction and ambiguity problems in privacy policies.

Business Management System and Information Analysis Platform Based on Science and Technology Innovation Ecology

With the development and application of computer technology, business management system has been widely used and popularized, and the complexity of application is also increasing. Scientific and technological progress is an important force to promote human civilization and economic and social development, and scientific and technological innovation will also play a huge role in promoting enterprise development. In the process of building most information platforms today, the analysis and design of the system are in a split state. Requirements analysts analyze problems from business requirements, without considering technical feasibility, which leads developers to change corresponding requirements unconsciously in a way that adapts to technology. Science and technology management system needs to realize the transformation from rigidity to flexibility, from management informatization to decision-making informatization, so as to further improve the level and effect of science and technology management. The establishment of enterprise scientific research business management system can not only save the cost of evaluation, but also enhance the fairness of project evaluation, increase the transparency of project evaluation, and improve the quality of demonstration construction projects.

Capturing creative requirements via requirements reuse: A machine learning-based approach

The software industry has become increasingly competitive as we see multiple software serving the same domain and striving for customers. To that end, modern software needs to provide creative features to improve sustainability. To advance software creativity, research has proposed several techniques, including multi-day workshops involving experienced requirements analysts, and semi-automated tools to support creative thinking in a limited scope. Such approaches are either useful only for software with already rich issue tracking systems, or require substantial engagement from analysts with creative minds. In a recent work, we have demonstrated a novel framework that is beneficial for both novel and existing software and allows end-to-end automation promoting creativity. The framework reuses requirements from similar software freely available online, utilizes advanced natural language processing and machine learning techniques, and leverages the concept of requirement boilerplate to generate candidate creative requirements. An application of our framework on software domains: Antivirus, Web Browser, and File Sharing followed by a human subject evaluation have shown promising results. In this invited extension, we present further analysis for our research questions and report an additional evaluation by human subjects. The results exhibit the framework’s ability in generating creative features even for a relatively matured application domain, such as Web Browser, and provoking creative thinking among developers irrespective of their experience levels.

A Value-Driven Modeling Approach for Crossover Services

In recent years, crossover services have attracted wide attention as an emerging service mode in the modern service industry. Crossover services can offer values that cannot be provided by single-domain services, and they usually need to cross the boundaries of domains, organizations, and processes, which puts forward more challenges for requirements modeling and analysis under the crossover scenarios. Given the characteristics of crossover services, the authors propose a value-driven meta-model framework from multiple viewpoints to support the requirements analysis of crossover services, which consists of three parts: a value network, a goal network, and a service network. Based on the proposed meta-model framework, a value-driven crossover service modeling tool is developed to help requirements analysts in requirements analysis and design, and a case study is presented to illustrate the usage of the proposed approach. Finally, we evaluate our methods and tools using a controlled experiment, and the experimental results show the effectiveness of the approach.

A domain-specific language for verifying software requirement constraints

• Detection of requirement inconsistencies comes with a significant cost. • We propose a DSL based on Set Theory (GIRL) for structural invariants. • GIRL invariants can be evaluated using Alloy, the target language for a translation semantics. • With a prototypical IDE as an Eclipse plugin, requirement analysts evaluated usability and effectiveness. • Participants effectively used the analysis, complex logical constructs. Software requirement analysis can undoubtedly benefit from prevention and early detection of failures, in particular by some kind of automatic analysis. Formal methods offer means to represent and analyze requirements with rigorous tools, avoiding ambiguities, and allowing automatic verification of requirement consistency. However, formalisms often clash in the culture or lack of software analysts' skills, making them challenging to apply. In this article, we propose a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) based on Set Theory for requirement analysts. The Graphical InvaRiant Language (GIRL) can be used to specify software requirement structural invariants, with entities and their relationships. Those invariants can then have their consistency evaluated by the Alloy Analyzer, based on a translational semantics we provide for transforming GIRL models into Alloy specifications with no user intervention. With a prototypical language editor and transformations implemented into an Eclipse plugin, we carried out a qualitative study, with requirement analysts working for a government software company in Brazil, to evaluate usability and effectiveness of the GIRL-based analysis of real software requirements. The participants were able to effectively use the underlying formal analysis since 79 out of 80 assigned invariants were correctly modeled. While participants perceived as low the complexity of learning and using GIRL's simplest, set-based structures and relationships, the most complex logical structures, such as quantification and implication, were challenging. Furthermore, almost all post-study evaluations from the participants were positive, especially as a tool for discovering requirement inconsistencies.

Requirements Elicitation Technique Selection: A Five Factors Approach

Requirements Engineering phase is well recognized as a root of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) by research community. Requirements are elucidated through requirements elicitation methods conceded by requirement analyst. Requirements elicitation phase is planned and strategized to get complete acquaintance about user’s requirements and expectations. Current software industries having massive necessity to help requirements analyst in requirements elicitation process to carry out precise manner. Correct and refined requirements lead to successful software projects. Vague and incorrect requirements possibly will result in the defective software project. For successful software development, it is vital to recognize precise and accurate requirements for the software project. The progression of information technology has presented various requirements elicitation techniques and therefore analysts are provided with various likely options. Generally, the analyst selects elicitation technique according to company practice or their individual knowledge and skills. It is undefined on the selection of best elicitation techniques for certain situations under particular constraints and circumstances. Several guidelines do exist in literature for technique selection but most technique are theoretical rather than practical. In this research paper, deep knowledge of principal elicitation techniques is explained. After that a five facets model is proposed to select elicitation technique in which major aspects are project characteristics, software development process categories, organizational characteristics, stakeholder characteristics and analyst characteristics. We also demonstrate the suitability of the proposed framework via case studies and verified how the model uses relative knowledge of problem domain to select appropriate requirements elicitation technique for the software under construction.

Developing A Comprehensive Tool to Support Requirements Analyst During Elicitation Interviews [Kennesaw State University

This research is being conducted to provide requirements analysts with a supportive tool to use during elicitation interviews. In these interviews that were conducted as part of the overall project, stakeholders were asked a series of questions while wearing the Empatica E4 wristband and being recorded through various voice recording platforms. As a part of an ongoing research project, stakeholders have been interviewed using voice recordings and the Empatica E4 wristband to gather biofeedback data. Requirements analyst need support during elicitation interviews because of the ambiguity that arises during communication making it harder to collect proper requirements. In order to provide features such as visualizing the biofeedback collected from the Empatica E4 wristband and the voice waves, questions such as how to create a user-friendly application and how to synchronize the biofeedback and voice data must be researched. In conclusion, creating this mobile application would to assist requirements analysts in carrying out assessments during elicitation interviews.

Complementarity in Requirements Tracing.

Complementarity between activities reveals that doing any one of them increases the returns to doing the others. In other words, complementarity leads to the synergistic effect that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Identifying and exploiting complementarity can benefit many cybernetic activities, where human-machine interactions are inherent and dominant. One such activity is requirements tracing that helps stakeholders to track the status of their goals. Although various kinds of support for human analysts in requirements tracing have been proposed, little is known about the nature of complementarity when different tracing practices are involved. In this paper, we explore the role of complementarity by considering together the tagging-to-trace (T2T) and learning-to-trace (L2T) activities. We present a novel approach to examining which T2T and L2T practices enhance the qualities of each other. Our approach also uncovers the environmental factors which the complementarity is sensitive to. Applying our approach to the logs of 140 analyst-tracing units offers operational insights into the rigorous detection of complementarity and shows the importance of understanding the cybernetic conditions under which the requirements tracing practices may in fact be complementary.

Enhancing the involvement of decision makers in data mart design

The design phase of a data warehousing project remains difficult for both decision makers and requirements analysts. In this paper, we tackle this difficulty through two contributions. First, we propose a natural language based and goal-oriented template for requirements specification that includes all concepts of the decision-making process. The use of familiar concepts and natural language makes our template more accessible and helps decision makers in validating the specified requirements, which avoids producing data mart that does not meet their needs. Secondly, we propose a decision-making ontology that provides for a systematic decomposition of decision-making goals, which allows new requirements to emerge. This automatic requirements elicitation helps analysts to overcome their lack of domain knowledge, which avoids producing erroneous requirements.

Enhancing the involvement of decision makers in data mart design

The design phase of a data warehousing project remains difficult for both decision makers and requirements analysts. In this paper, we tackle this difficulty through two contributions. First, we propose a natural language based and goal-oriented template for requirements specification that includes all concepts of the decision-making process. The use of familiar concepts and natural language makes our template more accessible and helps decision makers in validating the specified requirements, which avoids producing data mart that does not meet their needs. Secondly, we propose a decision-making ontology that provides for a systematic decomposition of decision-making goals, which allows new requirements to emerge. This automatic requirements elicitation helps analysts to overcome their lack of domain knowledge, which avoids producing erroneous requirements.

An Effective Security Requirements Engineering Framework for Cyber-Physical Systems

Context and motivation: Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are gaining priority over other systems. The heterogeneity of these systems increases the importance of security. Both the developer and the requirement analyst must consider details of not only the software, but also the hardware perspective, including sensor and network security. Several models for secure software engineering processes have been proposed, but they are limited to software; therefore, to support the processes of security requirements, we need a security requirements framework for CPSs. Question/Problem: Do existing security requirements frameworks fulfil the needs of CPS security requirements? The answer is no; existing security requirements frameworks fail to accommodate security concerns outside of software boundaries. Little or even no attention has been given to sensor, hardware, network, and third party elements during security requirements engineering in different existing frameworks. Principal Ideas/results: We have proposed, applied, and assessed an incremental security requirements evolution approach, which configures the heterogeneous nature of components and their threats in order to generate a secure system. Contribution: The most significant contribution of this paper is to propose a security requirements engineering framework for CPSs that overcomes the issue of security requirements elicitation for heterogeneous CPS components. The proposed framework supports the elicitation of security requirements while considering sensor, receiver protocol, network channel issues, along with software aspects. Furthermore, the proposed CPS framework has been evaluated through a case study, and the results are shown in this paper. The results would provide great support in this research direction.

A Systematic Study on Software Requirements Elicitation Techniques and its Challenges in Mobile Application Development

Software Requirements Engineering has paved its roots in both industry and academia, as today’s complex systems are programmed to provide efficient user-centric functionalities. This also refers to the emergence of challenges in Requirements Elicitation techniques, approaches, and tools while performing them. Particularly, in the area of Requirements Engineering for software development, a number of techniques and approaches have been observed in literature but for mobile application development, which is different from the traditional software development, has not been discussed much in past studies. Short development cycle, device limitations, and less development time for mobile application development are some of the issues to which there is no ‘silver bullet’ available. Therefore, the Requirement Analysts are in dire need of defined guidelines for Requirement Elicitation in mobile application development. With this study, we aim to provide a detailed overview of Requirements Elicitation techniques and its challenges. We have conducted a systematic literature review by surveying 4507 initial and 36 primary studies. A comprehensive set of 22 elicitation techniques were measured based on quality assessment criteria, including time and cost factors, resource effectiveness, and domain understanding. Furthermore, the challenges in Requirements Elicitation were also grouped into eight different categories based on their applicability. Our study effectively contributes in highlighting Software Requirements Elicitation Techniques and its challenges in mobile application development.

Integration of Heterogeneous Requirements using Ontologies

Ontology-driven approaches are used to sustain the requirement engineering process. Ontologies can be used to define information and knowledge semantics during the requirements engineering phases, such as analysis, specification, validation and management of requirements. However, requirement analysts face difficulties in using ontologies for requirement engineering. In this study, a framework has been proposed to integrate heterogeneous requirements by using local and global ontologies.

Group versus individual use of power-only EPMcreate as a creativity enhancement technique for requirements elicitation

Creativity is often needed in requirements elicitation, i.e., generating ideas for requirements, and therefore, techniques to enhance creativity are believed to be useful. How does the size of a group using the Power-Only EPMcreate (POEPMcreate) creativity enhancement technique affect the group's and each member of the group's effectiveness in generating requirement ideas? This paper describes an experiment in which individuals and two-person and four-person groups used POEPMcreate to generate ideas for requirements for enhancing a high school's public Web site. The data of this experiment combined with the data of two previous experiments involving two-person and four-person groups using POEPMcreate show that, similar to what has been observed for brainstorming, the size of a group using POEPMcreate does affect the number of raw and new requirement ideas generated by the group and by the average member of the group. The data allow concluding that a two-person group using POEPMcreate generates more raw and new requirement ideas, both per group and per group member or individual, than does a four-person group and than does an individual. This conclusion is partially corroborated by qualitative data gathered from a survey of professional business or requirements analysts about group sizes and creativity enhancement techniques.

Fuzzy Approach to Prioritize Usability Requirements Conflicts: An Experimental Evaluation

The lack of attention to the correlation between the attributes of usability requirements leads to several problems with software development. This paper presents a novel framework that focuses on the mapping of usability requirements attributes to the linguistic assessment from the users using fuzzy logic. Our proposed framework prioritizes conflicting usability requirements attributes. For implementation, we have used MATLAB Fuzzy Logic Tool box. This proposed framework is aimed at helping the requirement analyst in taking better decisions by automating the whole process of identifying and resolving usability requirements conflicts. The major task in the proposed system involves determining the numerical value for each attribute considering their respective importance in different quantitative and qualitative evaluation standards. On the basis of numerical value, conflicts and their respective severities are identified.