Requirements engineering related usability techniques adopted in agile development processes

Over the last decade there has been a growing interest in the integration of agile software development process (ASDP) and user-centred design (UCD). However, there are no papers that study which usability techniques related to requirements engineering are being adopted in the ASDP, and there are no formalized proposals for their adoption. Objective: Identify which techniques related to requirements engineering activities are being adopted in the ASDP and determine how they are being adopted. Method: We have conducted a systematic mapping study (SMS) to retrieve the literature reporting the application of usability techniques in the ASDP. We analysed these techniques using a catalogue of techniques compiled by software engineering researchers. We then determined the manner in which the techniques that are being used in the ASDP were adopted. Results: The agile community is very much interested in adopting usability techniques. The most used techniques are Personas, contextual inquiry and prototyping. Conclusions: This research offers an overview of the adoption of usability techniques related to requirements engineering in ASDPs and reports how they are being adopted. We found that some of the techniques are being adapted for adoption.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports FLEXOR and “Realizando Experimentos en la Industria del Software: Comprensión del Paso de Laboratorio a la Realidad” projects (TIN2014-52129-R and TIN2014-60490-P, respectively) and the eMadrid-CM “Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías Educativas en la Comunidad de Madrid” project (S2013/ICE-2715

Identifying Agile Requirements Engineering Patterns in Industry

Agile Software Development (ASD) is gaining in popularity in today´s business world. Industry is adopting agile methodologies both to accelerate value delivery and to enhance the ability to deal with changing requirements. However, ASD has a great impact on how Requirements Engineering (RE) is carried out in agile environments. The integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) plays an important role due to the focus on user and stakeholder involvement. To this end, we aim to introduce agile RE patterns as main objective of this paper. On the one hand, we will describe our pattern mining process based on empirical research in literature and industry. On the other hand, we will discuss our results and provide two examples of agile RE patterns. In sum, the pattern mining process identifies 41 agile RE patterns. The accumulated knowledge will be shared by means of a web application.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

An Investigation into Mobile Based Approach for Healthcare Activities, Occupational Therapy System

This research is to design and optimize the high quality of mobile apps, especially for iOS. The objective of this research is to develop a mobile system for Occupational therapy specialists to access and retrieval information. The investigation identifies the key points of using mobile-D agile methodology in mobile application development. It considers current applications within a different platform. It achieves new apps (OTS) for the health care activities

Software development methods and usability: Perspectives from a survey in the software industry in Norway

This paper investigates the relationship between traditional software development methodologies and usability. The point of departure is the assumption that two important disciplines in software development, one of software development methods (SDMs) and one of usability work, are not integrated in industrial software projects. Building on previous research we investigate two questions; (1) Will software companies generally acknowledge the importance of usability, but not prioritise it in industrial projects? and (2) To what degree are software development methods and usability perceived by practitioners as being integrated? To this end a survey in the Norwegian IT industry was conducted. From a sample of 259 companies we received responses from 78 companies. In response to our first research question, our findings show that although there is a positive bias towards usability, the importance of usability testing is perceived to be much less than that of usability requirements. Given the strong time and cost pressures associated with the software industry, we believe that these results highlight that there is a gap between intention and reality. Regarding our second research question our survey revealed that companies perceive usability and software development methods to be integrated. This is in contrast to earlier research, which, somewhat pessimistically, has argued for the existence of two different cultures, one of software development and one of usability. The findings give hope for the future, in particular because the general use of system development methods are pragmatic and adaptable

Intangible trust requirements - how to fill the requirements trust "gap"?

Previous research efforts have been expended in terms of the capture and subsequent instantiation of "soft" trust requirements that relate to HCI usability concerns or in relation to "hard" tangible security requirements that primarily relate to security a ssurance and security protocols. Little direct focus has been paid to managing intangible trust related requirements per se. This 'gap' is perhaps most evident in the public B2C (Business to Consumer) E- Systems we all use on a daily basis. Some speculative suggestions are made as to how to fill the 'gap'. Visual card sorting is suggested as a suitable evaluative tool; whilst deontic logic trust norms and UML extended notation are the suggested (methodologically invariant) means by which software development teams can perhaps more fully capture hence visualize intangible trust requirements

A requirements engineering framework for integrated systems development for the construction industry

Computer Integrated Construction (CIC) systems are computer environments through which collaborative working can be undertaken. Although many CIC systems have been developed to demonstrate the communication and collaboration within the construction projects, the uptake of CICs by the industry is still inadequate. This is mainly due to the fact that research methodologies of the CIC development projects are incomplete to bridge the technology transfer gap. Therefore, defining comprehensive methodologies for the development of these systems and their effective implementation on real construction projects is vital. Requirements Engineering (RE) can contribute to the effective uptake of these systems because it drives the systems development for the targeted audience. This paper proposes a requirements engineering approach for industry driven CIC systems development. While some CIC systems are investigated to build a broad and deep contextual knowledge in the area, the EU funded research project, DIVERCITY (Distributed Virtual Workspace for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry), is analysed as the main case study project because its requirements engineering approach has the potential to determine a framework for the adaptation of requirements engineering in order to contribute towards the uptake of CIC systems

Approach to attributed feature modeling for requirements elicitation in Scrum agile development

Requirements elicitation is a core activity of requirements engineering for the product to be developed. The knowledge that has been gained during requirements engineering about the product to be developed forms the basis for requirement elicitation. The agile approach is becoming known day by day as the most widely used innovative process in the domain of requirements engineering. Requirements elicitation in agile development faces several challenges. Requirements must be gathered sufficiently to reflect stakeholders' needs. Furthermore, because of the development process, requirements evolve, and they must be adequately treated to keep up with the changing demands of the market and the passage of time. Another challenge with agile implementation is handling non-functional requirements in software development. Addressing non- functional requirements is still a critical factor in the success of any product. Requirements prioritization is also one of the most challenging tasks, and it is uncommon for requirement engineers to be able to specify and document all the requirements at once. This paper presents an approach for requirements elicitation in scrum-based agile development. The approach operates with the feature modeling technique, which is originally used in the Software Product Line (SPL). One of the most important proposed extensions to Feature Models (FMs) is the introduction of feature attributes. Our method uses attributed FMs to consider both functional and non-functional requirements as well as requirement prioritization. For the evaluation purposes, we have demonstrated our approach through two case studies in different domains of software product development. The first case study is in the domain of education, and the second one is in the domain of health care. The results reveal that our approach fits the requirements elicitation process in scrum agile development.Bourns College of Engineering, University of California, Riverside(undefined