Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
SpringerLink
Log in

Analysis of Techniques for Documenting User Requirements

  • Conference paper
Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2012 (ICCSA 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7336))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

A number of approaches were proposed in past years to document user requirements. Choosing the most suitable one is difficult, and frequently based on ad-hoc decision. In order to assist the way requirements engineers choose, an evaluation is necessary. The purpose of this paper is to analyze methods and languages used for user requirements documentation considering a number of criteria. This analysis was performed after extensive literature research and action research at companies that develop software-intensive systems. The objective is not to show how to find the best technique, the one that will perfectly suit all software projects. Instead, our purpose is to propose a critical view on a number of chosen techniques that might be useful for practitioners when choosing which technique to use on a specific project. The assumption is that stakeholders can benefit from knowing which techniques fit better a number of pre-determined evaluation criteria.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Abran, A., Bourque, P., Dupuis, R., Moore, J.W., Tripp, L.L. (eds.): Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge - SWEBOK, 2004 version edn. IEEE Press, Piscataway (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Abrial, J.R.: Formal Methods: Theory Becoming Practice. Journal of Universal Computer Science 13(5), 619–628 (2007)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Anda, B., Hansen, K., Gullesen, I., Thorsen, H.K.: Experiences from Introducing UML-based Development in a Large Safety-Critical Project. Empirical Software Engineering 11(4), 555–581 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Avison, D.E., Lau, F., Myers, M.D., Nielsen, P.A.: Action Research. Communications of the ACM 42(1), 94–97 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Balmelli, L., Brown, D., Cantor, M., Mott, M.: Model-driven Systems Development. IBM Systems Journal 45(3), 569–586 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Baskerville, R.: Investigating Information Systems with Action Research. Communications of the AIS 2(4), 1–32 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Beck, K.: Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change. Addison-Wesley Professional, Boston (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Beneken, G., Hammerschall, U., Broy, M., Cengarle, M.V., Jürjens, J., Rumpe, B., Schoenmakers, M.: Componentware - State of the Art 2003. In: Proceedings of the CUE Workshop Venedig (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Berry, D.M.: The Inevitable Pain of Software Development: Why There Is No Silver Bullet. In: Wirsing, M., Knapp, A., Balsamo, S. (eds.) RISSEF 2002. LNCS, vol. 2941, pp. 50–74. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Boehm, B.W.: Software and Its Impact: A Quantitative Assessment. Datamation 19(5), 48–59 (1973)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Booch, G.: The Economics of Architecture-First. IEEE Software 24, 18–20 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Bowen, J.P., Hinchey, M.G.: Seven More Myths of Formal Methods. IEEE Software 12(4), 34–41 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Brooks, F.P.: No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering. Computer 20(4), 10–19 (1987)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Browne, G.J., Ramesh, V.: Improving Information Requirements Determination: A Cognitive Perspective. Information Management 39(8), 625–645 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Broy, M.: From “Formal Methods” to System Modeling. In: Jones, C.B., Liu, Z., Woodcock, J. (eds.) Formal Methods and Hybrid Real-Time Systems. LNCS, vol. 4700, pp. 24–44. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Connor, A.M., Buchan, J., Petrova, K.: Bridging the Research-Practice Gap in Requirements Engineering through Effective Teaching and Peer Learning. In: ITNG 2009: Proceedings of the 2009 Sixth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, pp. 678–683. IEEE Computer Society (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Cooper, K., Ito, M.: Formalizing a Structured Natural Language Requirements Specification Notation. In: Proceedings of the International Council on Systems Engineering Symposium, vol. CDROM index 1.6.2, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, pp. 1–8 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Damian, D., Zowghi, D., Vaidyanathasamy, L., Pal, Y.: An Industrial Case Study of Immediate Benefits of Requirements Engineering Process Improvement at the Australian Center for Unisys Software. Empirical Software Engineering 9(1-2), 45–75 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Davies, I., Green, P., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M., Gallo, S.: How Do Practitioners Use Conceptual Modelling in Practice? Data Knowledge Engineering 58(3), 358–380 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Davis, A.M.: The Art of Requirements Triage. Computer 36(3), 42–49 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Davis, J.F.: The Affordable Application of Formal Methods to Software Engineering. ACM SIGAda Ada Letters XXV(4), 57–62 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Dobing, B., Parsons, J.: How UML is Used. Communications of the ACM 49(5), 109–113 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Easterbrook, S., Nuseibeh, B.: Using ViewPoints for inconsistency management. Software Engineering Journal 11(1), 31–43 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Easterbrrok, S., Nuseibeh, B.: Using ViewPoints for inconsistency management. Software Engineering Journal 11(1), 31–43 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. van Genuchten, M.: Why is Software Late? An Empirical Study of Reasons For Delay in Software Development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 17(6), 582–590 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Henderson-Sellers, B.: UML - the Good, the Bad or the Ugly? Perspectives from a panel of experts. Software and System Modeling 4(1), 4–13 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Hofmann, H.F., Lehner, F.: Requirements Engineering as a Success Factor in Software Projects. IEEE Software 18(4), 58–66 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Hurley, R.B.: Decision Tables in Software Engineering. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York (1983)

    Google Scholar 

  29. IEEE: IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications. Tech. rep. (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Jacobson, I.: Object-Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach. Addison-Wesley Professional, Reading (1992)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  31. Jacobson, I.: Use Cases - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Software and System Modeling 3(3), 210–220 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Jiang, L., Eberlein, A., Far, B., Mousavi, M.: A Methodology for the Selection of Requirements Engineering Techniques. Software and Systems Modeling 7, 303–328 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Juristo, N., Moreno, A.M., Silva, A.: Is the European Industry Moving Toward Solving Requirements Engineering Problems? IEEE Software 19(6), 70–77 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Kamsties, E.: Understanding Ambiguity in Requirements Engineering. In: Aurum, A., Wohlin, C. (eds.) Engineering and Managing Software Requirements, pp. 245–266. Springer, Berlin (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  35. Komi-Sirviö, S., Tihinen, M.: Great Challenges and Opportunities of Distributed Software Development - An Industrial Survey. In: Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2003), pp. 489–496 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Larsen, P.G., Fitzgerald, J., Brookes, T.: Applying Formal Specification in Industry. IEEE Software 13(3), 48–56 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Luisa, M., Mariangela, F., Pierluigi, I.: Market Research for Requirements Analysis Using Linguistic Tools. Requirements Engineering 9(1), 40–56 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Maiden, N., Rugg, G.: ACRE: Selecting Methods for Requirements Acquisition. Software Engineering Journal 11(3), 183–192 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Minor, O., Armarego, J.: Requirements Engineering: a Close Look at Industry Needs and Model Curricula. Australian Journal of Information Systems 13(1), 192–208 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Moody, D.L., Heymans, P., Raimundas Matulevičius, R.: Visual Syntax Does Matter: Improving the Cognitive Effectiveness of the i* Visual Notation. Requirements Engineering 15(2), 141–175 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. OMG: Systems Modeling Language (SysML) - Version 1.2 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Parviainen, P., Tihinen, M., Lormans, M., van Solingen, R.: Requirements Engineering: Dealing with the Complexity of Sociotechnical Systems Development., ch. 1, pp. 1–20. IdeaGroup Inc. (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Pressman, R.S.: Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 7th edn. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Robertson, S., Robertson, J.: Mastering the Requirements Process, 2nd edn. Addison-Wesley Professional, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Robinson, W.N., Pawlowski, S.D., Volkov, V.: Requirements Interaction Management. ACM Computing Surveys 35(2), 132–190 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Sharon, I., Soares, M.S., Barjis, J., van den Berg, J., Vrancken, J.L.M.: A Decision Framework for Selecting a Suitable Software Development Process. In: Proceedings of ICEIS 2010, 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems. vol. 3, pp. 34–43 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  47. Simons, A.J.H.: Use Cases Considered Harmful. In: TOOLS 1999: Proceedings of the Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems, pp. 194–203 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Soares, M.S., Vrancken, J.L.M.: Evaluation of UML in Practice - Experiences in a Traffic Management Systems Company. In: Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, ICEIS 2010, pp. 313–319 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  49. Soares, M.S., Vrancken, J.L.M., Verbraeck, A.: User Requirements Modeling and Analysis of Software-Intensive Systems. Journal of Systems and Software 84(2), 328–339 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Sommerville, I.: Software Engineering, 9th edn. Addison-Wesley, Essex (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  51. Sommerville, I., Kotonya, G.: Requirements Engineering: Processes and Techniques. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  52. Sommerville, I., Sawyer, P., Viller, S.: Managing process inconsistency using viewpoints. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 25, 784–799 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Sommerville, I., Sawyer, P., Viller, S.: Viewpoints for Requirements Elicitation: A Practical Approach. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Requirements Engineering: Putting Requirements Engineering to Practice, ICRE 1998, pp. 74–81 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  54. The Standish Group: CHAOS Chronicles v3.0. Tech. rep., The Standish Group (2003) (last accessed on the August 20, 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  55. Venkatesh, V., Bala, H.: Technology Acceptance Model 3 and a Research Agenda on Interventions. Decision Sciences 39(2), 273–315 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Wassyng, A., Lawford, M.: Lessons Learned from a Successful Implementation of Formal Methods in an Industrial Project. In: Araki, K., Gnesi, S., Mandrioli, D. (eds.) FME 2003. LNCS, vol. 2805, pp. 133–153. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  57. Woodcock, J., Larsen, P.G., Bicarregui, J., Fitzgerald, J.: Formal Methods: Practice and Experience. ACM Computing Surveys 41(4), 1–36 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Yu, E.S.: Towards Modelling and Reasoning Support for Early-Phase Requirements Engineering. In: International Symposium on Requirements Engineering, pp. 226–235 (1997)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Faculty (FACOM), Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), Av. João Naves de Ávila, 2121, Bloco 1B, Uberlândia, Brazil

    Michel dos Santos Soares & Daniel Souza Cioquetta

Authors
  1. Michel dos Santos Soares
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Daniel Souza Cioquetta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Urban and Territorial Systems, University of Basilicata, 10, Viale dell’Ateneo Lucano, 85100, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  2. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Perugia, Via Vanvitelli 1, 06123, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  3. Department of Cyber Security Science, Federal University of Technology, Gidan Kwano Campus, Minna, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  4. Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electronics Engineering and Telecommunications, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rua Sao Francisco Xavier, 524, 50. andar, sala 5145-F, Maracana, 20, 550-013, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Nadia Nedjah

  5. Department of Production and Systems, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A. C. Rocha

  6. School of Business Systems, Monash University, 3800, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    David Taniar

  7. Department of Intelligent Informatics, Kyushu Sangyo University, 2-3-1 Matsukadai, Higashi-ku, 813-8503, Fukuoka, Japan

    Bernady O. Apduhan

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

dos Santos Soares, M., Cioquetta, D.S. (2012). Analysis of Techniques for Documenting User Requirements. In: Murgante, B., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2012. ICCSA 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7336. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31128-4_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31128-4_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31127-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31128-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation