The adoptions of USEPs in identifying usability requirements in SSM-based framework: a case study

Nowadays, user demand for quality software product have been increased and developers have to make sure that their products are able to meet the user’s need in order to compete in the market. Usability, which is a kind of software quality, became an important factor to determine the success or failure of a software product in this challenging market. Unfortunately, lack of attention given to usability requirements especially during the early stage of software development process and therefore increase the cost of fixing usability problems and causes the final software products are poor in quality. Therefore, this paper aimed to identify usability requirements at the requirement stage of software development by using the SSM-based analysis framework. We have conducted a case study by applying a usability elicitation pattern, USEPs, into the framework. From the result of our study, it has shown that this pattern is useful to assist the stakeholders in identifying usability requirements along with the functionality of a system. Besides, we have also made some enhancement and extensions to the framework based on our findings from the study

An analysis framework for identifying usability requirements in mobile application development

People reasons to choose an application is for the functionalities offered. Though, the way in which the functions are performed will also have a significant impact to the user’s choice. Software usability is one of the crucial factors that can influence user acceptance. It assesses the extent of which software facilitates users in utilizing the offered functions easily and effectively. Usability requirements are associated and complement the functional requirements. However, it is common that the usability requirements are captured at the design stage of software development due to its characteristic. Essentially, it should be identified at the earlier stage (i.e., requirements stage) to ensure the success of the software product. Therefore, we explore the potential benefits of Soft System Methodology (SSM) in identifying usability requirements at the requirements stage. The proposed SSM-based framework is applied in preliminary analysis, in which the results are useful to inform the next stage of the development process. The practical benefits of the proposed analysis framework are demonstrated in a case study. The framework would be beneficial particularly for mobile software developers in improving the quality of the mobile applications

Towards improving usability requirements elicitation and specification using ontology-driven approach

Nowadays, due to the high demand for quality software, the challenges facing by developers to meet the user expectations are increased from time to time. Usability, a quality attribute related to efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction of the end users to a system has been recognized as one of the significant issue in software development. However, due to its abstract in characteristic which related to human behavior, usability requirements are always being ignored during the software development process especially from the early stage of requirement elicitation. As a result, it increases the cost of solving usability problems and affects the quality of final products. Therefore in this paper, we present a proposal to develop a pattern-based usability requirement elicitation and specification method by using ontology and boilerplates. The main contribution of this proposed work is to provide a guidance to help the requirement engineer to elicit and select the necessary usability features from the ontology knowledge repository and specifying them using boilerplate requirement template. Accordingly, a set of consistent, complete and unambiguous usability requirement specifications is produced

Towards improving NFR elicitation in software development.

Non-functional requirement (NFR), such as performance, reliability, security and usability, have highly impact on the quality of software products. However, most of the current requirement elicitation processes are mainly focused on functional requirements (FR), while the NFR have received less attention. This paper provides literature on NFR elicitation in order to find out the reasons and problems of improper treatment in NFR. Essential issues on NFR elicitation include the approaches, elicitation techniques, methods and tools were addressed. Finally, some suggestions for improvement on NFR elicitation to be undertaken are also discussed

Ontology-driven and template-based approach for usability requirements elicitation and specification

Nowadays, due to the high demand for quality software, the challenges facing by developers to meet the user expectations are increased from time to time. Usability, a quality attribute related to efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction of the end users to a system has been recognized as one of the significant factors that can influence user preferences and acceptance of software products. However, due to its abstract in characteristic and most of the software developers are lack of sufficient knowledge or expertise about usability issues, usability requirements are always being neglected especially from the early stage of software development. Typically, usability requirements are being specified at the later stage, such as during design, implementation or evaluation. The improper treatment of usability issues always cause the poor quality in software products and can contribute largely to software failure. As a result, it increases the efforts and costs of resolving usability problems after the software implementation and deployment. Therefore, an essential approach for considering and incorporating usability requirements start from the early stage of software development especially during the requirements elicitation became tremendously important. This study attempts to address the issues in improper treatment of usability by proposing a conceptual framework known as Usability Requirements Elicitation and Specification (UReS). The UReS is an ontologydriven and template-based approach mainly used for usability requirements elicitation and specification during the requirements engineering (RE) activities. UReS aims to provide semantic guidance to facilitate the requirement engineer in eliciting the relevant usability features of a domain’s function and specifying the usability requirements. To ensure the sufficient knowledge on usability is provided, a domain ontology which encodes the knowledge about usability features that are relevant to a domain context is designed and acts as the knowledge model in UReS framework during the requirements elicitation activity. Meanwhile, to foster the consistency and clarity of requirements specification, UReS uses a set of predefined boilerplate template to support the process of usability requirements specification. Apart from that, an UReS prototype tool has been developed to support the automation of UReS conceptual framework for facilitating the requirement engineer in performing the requirements elicitation and specification tasks. Furthermore, UReS conceptual framework and the prototype tool are validated using controlled experiment and usability study. The results achieved from the controlled experiment shows that the treatment approach, UReS framework performed well compared to control approach, the manual usability guidelines in terms of the accuracy which measured by correctness and completeness and the number of consistent and unambiguous usability requirements specification generated. In addition, the usability study used to evaluate the user perceptions in terms of the usefulness and usability of UReS prototype tool has received positive feedbacks from the targeted respondents