What you need is what you get!: The vision of view-based requirements specifications

Software requirements specifications play a crucial role in software development projects. Especially in large projects, these specifications serve as a source of communication and information for a variety of roles involved in downstream activities like architecture, design, and testing. This vision paper argues that in order to create high-quality requirements specifications that fit the specific demands of successive document stakeholders, our research community needs to better understand the particular information needs of downstream development roles. In this paper, the authors introduce the idea of view-based requirements specifications. Two scenarios illustrate (1) current problems and challenges related to the research underlying the envisioned idea and (2) how these problems could be solved in the future. Based on these scenarios, challenges and research questions are outlined and supplemented with current results of exemplary user studies. Furthermore, potential future research is suggested, which the community should perform to answer the research questions as part of a research agenda.

[1]  Jane Huffman Hayes,et al.  Automated Requirements Traceability: The Study of Human Analysts , 2010, 2010 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[2]  Donald Firesmith,et al.  Common Requirements Problems, Their Negative Consequences, and the Industry Best Practices to Help Solve Them , 2007, J. Object Technol..

[3]  Neil A. Ernst,et al.  Techne: Towards a New Generation of Requirements Modeling Languages with Goals, Preferences, and Inconsistency Handling , 2010, 2010 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[4]  Bashar Nuseibeh,et al.  Extending Nocuous Ambiguity Analysis for Anaphora in Natural Language Requirements , 2010, 2010 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[5]  Sebastian Adam,et al.  Addressing requirements engineering challenges in the context of Emergent Systems , 2011, 2011 Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Systems, Services and Systems-of-Systems.

[6]  T. D. Wilson,et al.  On user studies and information needs , 2006, J. Documentation.

[7]  J. M. Singer,et al.  IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements SpeciÞcations , 1993 .

[8]  Jane Huffman Hayes,et al.  Application of Swarm Techniques to Requirements Engineering: Requirements Tracing , 2010, 2010 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[9]  Michael Eisenbarth,et al.  Using Task-oriented Requirements Engineering in Different Domains – Experiences with Application in Research and Industry , 2009, 2009 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[10]  Linda A. Macaulay.  Requirements for requirements engineering techniques , 1996, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Requirements Engineering.

[11]  João Araújo,et al.  Early aspects: a model for aspect-oriented requirements engineering , 2002, Proceedings IEEE Joint International Conference on Requirements Engineering.

[12]  Klaus Kruczynski.  Business process modelling in the context of SOA – an empirical study of the acceptance between EPC and BPMN , 2010 .

[13]  Stefan Seedorf,et al.  Applications of Ontologies in Software Engineering , 2006 .

[14]  João Araújo,et al.  Identifying Aspectual Use Cases Using a Viewpoint-Oriented Requirements Method , 2003 .

[15]  Jörg Dörr,et al.  EPC vs. UML Activity Diagram - Two Experiments Examining their Usefulness for Requirements Engineering , 2009, 2009 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

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

[17]  John Mylopoulos,et al.  Integrating Preferences into Goal Models for Requirements Engineering , 2010, 2010 18th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

[18]  Forrest Shull,et al.  The empirical investigation of Perspective-Based Reading , 1995, Empirical Software Engineering.

[19]  Jonathan Streit,et al.  Practically Relevant Quality Criteria for Requirements Documents , 2008, Software Engineering Research and Practice.

[20]  Miroslaw Ochodek,et al.  Describing Business Processes with Use Cases , 2006, BIS.

[21]  Ian Sommerville,et al.  Viewpoints for requirements definition , 1992, Softw. Eng. J..

[22]  Michael Eisenbarth,et al.  Lessons Learned from Best Practice-Oriented Process Improvement in Requirements Engineering: A Glance into Current Industrial RE Application , 2009, 2009 Fourth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering Education and Training.