Keeping requirements on track via visual analytics

For many software projects, keeping requirements on track needs an effective and efficient path from data to decision. Visual analytics creates such a path that enables the human to extract insights by interacting with the relevant information. While various requirements visualization techniques exist, few have produced end-to-end values to practitioners. In this paper, we advance the literature on visual requirements analytics by characterizing its key components and relationships. This allows us to not only assess existing approaches, but also create tool enhancements in a principled manner. We evaluate our enhanced tool supports through a case study where massive, heterogeneous, and dynamic requirements are processed, visualized, and analyzed. In particular, our study illuminates how increased interactivity of requirements visualization could lead to actionable decisions.

[1]  Daniel A. Keim,et al.  Visual Analytics: Scope and Challenges , 2008, Visual Data Mining.

[2]  Olivier Zendra,et al.  Visualization of the Static Aspects of Software: A Survey , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[3]  Andreas Noack,et al.  Energy Models for Graph Clustering , 2007, J. Graph Algorithms Appl..

[4]  Lyn Richards,et al.  Handling Qualitative Data: A Practical Guide , 2020 .

[5]  Lucian Voinea,et al.  Case study: Visual analytics in software product assessments , 2009, 2009 5th IEEE International Workshop on Visualizing Software for Understanding and Analysis.

[6]  Daniela E. Damian,et al.  Selecting Empirical Methods for Software Engineering Research , 2008, Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering.

[7]  Donald J. McCubbrey,et al.  Management Information Systems for the Information Age , 1997 .

[8]  Nan Niu,et al.  ReCVisu: A tool for clustering-based visual exploration of requirements , 2012, 2012 20th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE).

[9]  Patrick Heymans,et al.  Visual syntax does matter: improving the cognitive effectiveness of the i* visual notation , 2010, Requirements Engineering.

[10]  Nan Niu,et al.  So, You Think You Know Others' Goals? A Repertory Grid Study , 2007, IEEE Software.

[11]  Songhua Xu,et al.  Automatic labeling of software requirements clusters , 2012, 2012 4th International Workshop on Search-Driven Development: Users, Infrastructure, Tools, and Evaluation (SUITE).

[12]  Jennifer Horkoff,et al.  Visualizations to support interactive goal model analysis , 2010, 2010 Fifth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization.

[13]  Stephen Clark,et al.  Best Practices for Automated Traceability , 2007, Computer.

[14]  Daniel Amyot,et al.  Visualizing Early Aspects with Use Case Maps , 2007, LNCS Trans. Aspect Oriented Softw. Dev..

[15]  Korbinian Herrmann,et al.  Visualization of Release Planning , 2006, 2006 First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization (REV'06 - RE'06 Workshop).

[16]  Charles Hansen,et al.  The Visualization Handbook , 2011 .

[17]  Ben Shneiderman,et al.  The eyes have it: a task by data type taxonomy for information visualizations , 1996, Proceedings 1996 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages.

[18]  S. Meier,et al.  An Improved Fisheye Zoom Algorithm for Visualizing and Editing Hierarchical Models , 2007, Second International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization (REV 2007).

[19]  Tim Menzies,et al.  Experiences using Visualization Techniques to Present Requirements, Risks to Them, and Options for Risk Mitigation , 2006, 2006 First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization (REV'06 - RE'06 Workshop).

[20]  Kristin A. Cook,et al.  Illuminating the Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics , 2005 .

[21]  J. Ziegler,et al.  Graph-based Visualization of Requirements Relationships , 2008, 2008 Requirements Engineering Visualization.

[22]  Daniel Jackson,et al.  Requirement progression in problem frames: deriving specifications from requirements , 2007, Requirements Engineering.

[23]  Ben Shneiderman,et al.  Readings in information visualization - using vision to think , 1999 .

[24]  Daniela Damian,et al.  Visualizing a Requirements-centred Social Network to Maintain Awareness Within Development Teams , 2006, 2006 First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization (REV'06 - RE'06 Workshop).

[25]  Björn Regnell,et al.  What Happened to Our Features? Visualization and Understanding of Scope Change Dynamics in a Large-Scale Industrial Setting , 2009, 2009 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[26]  J. Cleland-Huang,et al.  Visual Support In Automated Tracing , 2007, Second International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization (REV 2007).

[27]  Richard C. Holt,et al.  The Orphan Adoption problem in architecture maintenance , 1997, Proceedings of the Fourth Working Conference on Reverse Engineering.

[28]  Goetz Botterweck,et al.  Applying visualisation techniques in software product lines , 2008, SOFTVIS.

[29]  Malcolm Munro,et al.  Software Architecture Visualization: An Evaluation Framework and Its Application , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[30]  Nan Niu,et al.  A semantic relatedness approach for traceability link recovery , 2012, 2012 20th IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC).

[31]  Francis T. Marchese,et al.  The Potential for Synergy between Information Visualization and Software Engineering Visualization , 2008, 2008 12th International Conference Information Visualisation.

[32]  Patrick Heymans,et al.  Visually Effective Goal Models Using KAOS , 2007, ER Workshops.

[33]  Daniel Amyot,et al.  Evaluating goal models within the goal‐oriented requirement language , 2010, Int. J. Intell. Syst..

[34]  Petra Perner,et al.  Data Mining - Concepts and Techniques , 2002, Künstliche Intell..

[35]  Robin A. Gandhi,et al.  Requirements Engineering Visualization: A Survey on the State-of-the-Art , 2009, 2009 Fourth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization.

[36]  Seok-Won Lee,et al.  Visual Analytics for Requirements-driven Risk Assessment , 2007, Second International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Visualization (REV 2007).

[37]  Björn Regnell,et al.  A linguistic-engineering approach to large-scale requirements management , 2005, IEEE Software.

[38]  Denise Silver,et al.  Joint Application Development , 1995 .

[39]  Peter Sawyer,et al.  BEST PAPERS OF RE’10: REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING IN A MULTI-FACETED WORLD Relevance-based abstraction identification: technique and evaluation , 2022 .