Using the Affect Grid to Measure Emotions in Software Requirements Engineering

Computer systems are designed and used by humans. And human being is characterized, among other things, by emotions. Giving this fact, the process of designing and developing computer systems is, like any other facet in our lives, driven by emotions. Requirements engineering is one of the main phases in software development. In Requirements engineering, several tasks include acceptance and negotiation activities in which the emotional factor represents a key role. This paper presents a study based on the application of affect grid by Russell in requirements engineering main stakeholders: developers and users. Results show that high arousal and low pleasure levels in the process are predictors of conflictive requirements.

[1]  Gary Klein,et al.  An exploration of the relationship between software development process maturity and project performance , 2004, Inf. Manag..

[2]  Ricardo Colomo Palacios,et al.  Trust Building Process for Global Software Development Teams. A review from the Literature , 2010, Int. J. Knowl. Soc. Res..

[3]  Alistair G. Sutcliffe,et al.  Investigating the Role of 'Soft Issues' in the RE Process , 2008, 2008 16th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[4]  B. Boehm.  Software risk management: principles and practices , 1991, IEEE Software.

[5]  Suzanne Robertson,et al.  Mastering the Requirements Process , 1999 .

[6]  Arlie Russell Hochschild,et al.  The Sociology of Feeling and Emotion: Selected Possibilities , 1975 .

[7]  Frank Safayeni,et al.  Requirements engineering in new product development , 2008, CACM.

[8]  Ricardo Colomo Palacios,et al.  Personnel Performance Appraisal Coverage in ITIL, COBIT and CMMi: A Study from the Perspective of People-CMM , 2011, Int. J. Knowl. Soc. Res..

[9]  Barry W. Boehm,et al.  Identifying Quality-Requirement Conflicts , 1996, IEEE Softw..

[10]  Irit Hadar,et al.  Why and how can human-related measures support software development processes? , 2008, J. Syst. Softw..

[11]  Charlie C. Chen,et al.  Relationships among interpersonal conflict, requirements uncertainty, and software project performance , 2011 .

[12]  Ian Sommerville,et al.  Viewpoints: principles, problems and a practical approach to requirements engineering , 1997, Ann. Softw. Eng..

[13]  Kweku Ewusi-Mensah,et al.  Software development failures : anatomy of abandoned projects , 2003 .

[14]  Frank Tsui,et al.  Essentials of software engineering , 2006 .

[15]  Ian Sommerville,et al.  Human, Social and Organisational Influences on the Software Process , 2007 .

[16]  Isabel Ramos,et al.  Is emotion relevant to requirements engineering? , 2005, Requirements Engineering.

[17]  Ricardo Colomo Palacios,et al.  A Qualitative Study of Hard Decision Making in Managing Global Software Development Teams , 2010, Inf. Syst. Manag..

[18]  Amitai Etzioni.  Normative-Affective Factors: Toward a New Decisionmaking Model , 1988 .

[19]  Isabel Ramos,et al.  Requirements engineering for organizational transformation , 2005, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[20]  João Barroso,et al.  IT Professionals: An Iberian Snapshot , 2010, Int. J. Hum. Cap. Inf. Technol. Prof..

[21]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  The Cognitive Structure of Emotions , 1988 .

[22]  Jeffrey C. Carver,et al.  A systematic literature review to identify and classify software requirement errors , 2009, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[23]  Edmundo Tovar Caro,et al.  Identifying Technical Competences of IT Professionals: The Case of Software Engineers , 2010, Int. J. Hum. Cap. Inf. Technol. Prof..

[24]  C. Izard.  Emotion theory and research: highlights, unanswered questions, and emerging issues. , 2009, Annual review of psychology.

[25]  Ricardo Colomo Palacios,et al.  Sem-Fit: A semantic based expert system to provide recommendations in the tourism domain , 2011, Expert Syst. Appl..

[26]  Francisco García-Sánchez,et al.  SOLAR: Social Link Advanced Recommendation System , 2010, Future Gener. Comput. Syst..

[27]  J. Turner.  On the Origins of Human Emotions: A Sociological Inquiry into the Evolution of Human Affect , 2000 .

[28]  G. A. Kleef,et al.  How Emotions Regulate Social Life , 2009 .

[29]  Didar Zowghi.  Does Global Software Development Need a Different Requirements Engineering Process , 2007 .

[30]  Bashar Nuseibeh,et al.  Requirements engineering: a roadmap , 2000, ICSE '00.

[31]  Frederick P. Brooks,et al.  No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering , 1987 .

[32]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Well-being : the foundations of hedonic psychology , 1999 .

[33]  Alistair G. Sutcliffe,et al.  Analysing "people" problems in requirements engineering , 2010, 2010 ACM/IEEE 32nd International Conference on Software Engineering.

[34]  Karen Holtzblatt,et al.  Requirements gathering: the human factor , 1995, CACM.

[35]  Brian Corbitt,et al.  Exploring the cultural and social impacts on the requirements engineering processes ‐ highlighting some problems challenging virtual team relationships with clients , 2001 .

[36]  G. A. Mendelsohn,et al.  Affect grid : A single-item scale of pleasure and arousal , 1989 .

[37]  Larry Constantine.  The Peopleware Papers: Notes on the Human Side of Programming , 2001 .

[38]  Iris Vessey,et al.  Requirements specification: learning object, process, and data methodologies , 1994, CACM.

[39]  Francisco J. García-Peñalvo,et al.  A Study of the Impact of Global Software Development in Packaged Software Release Planning , 2012, J. Univers. Comput. Sci..

[40]  J. Russell.  Culture and the categorization of emotions. , 1991, Psychological bulletin.

[41]  Ian Sommerville,et al.  Requirements Engineering: Processes and Techniques , 1998 .

[42]  Didar Zowghi,et al.  Requirements Engineering challenges in multi-site software development organizations , 2004 .