USTM: A New Approach to Requirements Specification

Abstract The problem of inadequate requirements specification is well known. It is argued here that many of the problems stem from an insufficient user orientation on the part of the specifiers. A number of current approaches to requirements specification are reviewed and the need for a methodological approach to requirements capture and specification is discussed. The criteria for the design of a good methodology are deduced from the literature and a novel approach to requirements specification is described: this is the User Skills and Task Match (USTM) methodology. USTM is assessed against other current approaches and the specified criteria. The aim of the USTM methodology is to provide a user-centred approach to requirements specification. Attention is focused on users and their environment at the earliest stage of development in order to facilitate production of software that provides appropriate functionality and that clearly supports users in carrying out their roles at work, i.e. supports the users' cognitive, social and organisational needs. USTM involves generating data about users and their environment and then following a structured procedure in order to derive functional and nonfunctional requirements. The methodology is designed for use by groups of people, typically from marketing, product design, document design and user organisations, who are concerned with the specification of requirements for ‘generic’ systems. A ‘generic’ system is one that is designed to satisfy the needs of many different customers/markets (e.g. a point-of-sale system or personnel system).