There's Nothing Like a Good Argument

Since computing pioneers Vannevar Bush and Doug Engelbart envisioned computational support for argumentation, many have pursued the exciting vision of tools for capturing and augmenting collective reasoning. Designers would be able to capture their deliberations on the fly during design sessions, with intuitive visualizations assisting participatory analysis by diverse stakeholders. These traces would later help recover design rationale. When managing requirements, we can think of argument schemes as reusable patterns for tightening up deliberations. Project reviews are an obvious candidate, where decisions must be justified, often to be signed off, and resources committed. As meeting capture becomes a practical reality, we have the basis for requirements platforms that provide new forms of multimedia requirements and rationale traceability.