Employing Use-cases for Piecewise Evaluation of Requirements and Claims

Motivation – Complex design specifications must be partitioned in manageable pieces to be able to evaluate them in separate experiments. No methodology exists yet to deal with this task. Research approach – Practical experience in Situated Cognitive Engineering and the Mission Execution Crew Assistant is combined with a theoretical perspective on the relation between use-cases, requirements and claims. Findings/design – Hierarchical clustering is an effective method for partitioning a design specification. Use-cases provide a good criterion based on which to cluster the requirements and claims. Originality/Value – A new method and tool are presented for organising requirements and for systematising the evaluation of a complex design specification. Take away message – Piecewise evaluation benefits from a use-case-based partitioning of the design specification combined with an experimental stance on requirements and claims