Using mobile RE tools to give end-users their own voice

Researchers highlight end-user involvement in system design as an important concept for developing useful and usable solutions. However, end-user involvement in software engineering is still an open-ended topic. Novel paradigms such as service-oriented computing strengthen the need for more active end-user involvement in order to provide systems that are tailored to individual end-user needs. Our work is based on the fact that the majority of end-users are familiar with mobile devices and use an increasing number of mobile applications. A mobile tool enabling end-user led requirements elicitation could be just one of many applications installed on end-users' mobile devices. In this paper, we present a framework of end-user involvement in requirements elicitation which motivates our research. The main contribution of our research is a tool-supported requirements elicitation approach allowing end-users to document needs in situ. Furthermore, we present first evaluation results to highlight the feasibility of on-site end-user led requirements elicitation

The Crowd in Requirements Engineering: The Landscape and Challenges

Crowd-based requirements engineering (CrowdRE) could significantly change RE. Performing RE activities such as elicitation with the crowd of stakeholders turns RE into a participatory effort, leads to more accurate requirements, and ultimately boosts software quality. Although any stakeholder in the crowd can contribute, CrowdRE emphasizes one stakeholder group whose role is often trivialized: users. CrowdRE empowers the management of requirements, such as their prioritization and segmentation, in a dynamic, evolved style through collecting and harnessing a continuous flow of user feedback and monitoring data on the usage context. To analyze the large amount of data obtained from the crowd, automated approaches are key. This article presents current research topics in CrowdRE; discusses the benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from projects and experiments; and assesses how to apply the methods and tools in industrial contexts. This article is part of a special issue on Crowdsourcing for Software Engineering

Towards the Next Generation of Scenario Walkthrough Tools – A Research Preview

[Context and motivation] With the rise of cyber-physical systems (CPS), smart ecosystems, and the Internet of Things (IoT), software-intensive systems have become pervasive in everyone’s daily life. The shift from software systems to ubiquitous adaptive software-intensive systems not only affects the way we use software but further has an impact on the way these systems are designed and developed. Gathering requirements for such systems can benefit from elicitation processes that are conducted in the field with domain experts. [Question/problem] More traditional elicitation approaches such as interviews or workshops exhibit limitations when it comes to gathering requirements for systems of this nature – often lacking an in-depth context analysis and understanding of contextual constraints which are easily missed in a formal elicitation setting. Furthermore, dedicated methods which focus on understanding the system context such as contextual design are not widely adopted by the industry as they are perceived to be time-consuming and cumbersome to apply. [Principal ideas/results]. In this research preview paper we argue that scenario-based RE, scenario walkthrough approaches in particular, have the potential to support requirements elicitation for ubiquitous adaptive software-intensive systems through facilitating broader stakeholder involvement and enabling contextual requirements elicitation within the workplace of future system end-users. The envisioned on-site scenario walkthroughs can either be conducted by an analyst or by future end-users of the system themselves. [Contribution] We describe a research agenda including our ongoing research and our efforts to develop a novel framework and tool support for scenario-based RE

First international workshop on usability and accessibility focused requirements engineering (UsARE 2012): summary report

Usability and accessibility issues are common causes why software fails to meet user requirements. However, requirements engineers still focus on functional requirements and might ignore to also elicit system usability and accessibility requirements. This is a high risk which can lead to project and software failure. Improving the usability and accessibility of a system in a later development stage is costly and time consuming. Targeting these concerns, the workshop envisioned that research must address the proper integration of system usability and accessibility requirements into the requirements engineering process and also must focus on how to manage and control the evaluation of these requirements in a systematic way. UsARE 2012 provided a platform for discussing issues which are relevant for both fields, the Requirements Engineering (RE) and the Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The workshop aim was to bring\ together people from these two communities (RE and HCI) to explore this integration. Researchers and practitioners were invited to submit contributions including problem statements, technical solutions, experience reports, planned work and vision papers. Envisioned results may help aligning RE and HCI processes in order to overcome open issues in these fields

Usability- and Accessibility-Focused Requirements Engineering - First International Workshop, UsARE 2012, Held in Conjunction with {ICSE} 2012, Zurich, Switzerland, June 4, 2012 and Second International Workshop UsARE 2014, Held in Conjunction with {RE} 2014, Karlskrona, Sweden, August 25, 2014, Revised Selected Papers

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of theFirst International Workshop on Usability and Accessibility focused RequirementsEngineering, UsARE 2012, held in Zurich, Switzerland, in June 2012 in conjunctionwith ICSE 2012, the 34th International Conference on Software Engineering, and theSecond International Workshop, UsARE 2014, held in Karlskrona, Sweden, in August2014, in the course of RE 2014, the 22nd International Requirements EngineeringConference.This book consists of 10 chapters of which 9 are extended versions of the paperspresented at the two UsARE events. Amongst them, 3 are extended versions of thepapers presented at UsARE 2012 and 6 are extended versions of papers presented atUsARE 2014 - rounded off by a new chapter that was added as authors are doingrelevant work on the same topic. The chapters are organized into three sectionsaccording to their main focus: usability and user experience, accessibility andapplications

Geochemistry of upper palaeozoic-lower triassic granitoids of the central frontal cordillera (33 °10–33 °45), Argentina

11 páginas, 7 figuras, 1 tabla.[EN] New petrographic and chemical data from Upper Palaeozoic-Triassic granitoids from the Frontal Cordillera of Argentina (33 °10 to 33 °45) are presented. Five stocks with ages from Early Carboniferous to Late Permian were sampled. The rocks are all calc alkaline with the mineralogy of each stock comprising essential plagioclase, alkali-feldspar and quartz with monor biotite and hornblende. Chemically, the rocks are similar to granitoids from the Frontal Cordillera of Chile, although the Argentinian stocks have generally higher K/Rb ratios. REE chondrite-normalized patterns and overall abundances, along with other petrological and geochemical similarities, suggest a common mode of origin for the granitoid stocks. The absence of systematic and wide variations in abundance of compatible trace elements suggest that the stocks represent magmas largely unaffected by extensive high-level fractional crystallization, and that their compositions are controlled primarily at source. Their age, tectonic setting and geochemical trends are consistent with magma pulses generated during crustal extension. The magma source region is considered to be relatively mafic lower crust.[ES] Se presentan nuevos datos petrográficos y análisis quimicos de los granitoides del Paleozoico superior-Triásico del sector central de la Cordillera Frontal de Argentina (33 °10 to 33 °45′S). Cinco cuerpos intrusivos cuyas edades van desde el Carbonifero temprano al Triásico tardo frueron muestreados Todos los cuerpos presentan una mineralogia simple, constituida fundamentalmente por plagioclasa, feldsepato alcalino y cuarzo. La biotita y la homblenda aparecen en escasa abundancia. La similitud en la abundancia de las tierras raras y los dise os de sus curvas normalizadas a condritos asi como la similitud en las caracteristicas petrográficas y geoquimicas indica un modo comun de origen. La ausencia de variaciones sistemáticas y amplias en la abundancia de muchos de sus elementos trazas indica que estos intrusivos representail magmas en los que no se han llevado a cavo procesos extensivos de cristalizacion fraccionada durante el emplazamiento y ascenso de los mismos. Los datos geocronologicos y algunas diferencias en sus tendencias geoquimicasindican que cada intrusive representa un pulso separado de magma, probablemente derivado por fusion parcial de un magma padre de composicion b sica, sometido a condiciones de metamorfismo de la facies de amphibolitas en un ambiente extensional.D.A.G. is particularly grateful to A. Lopez Soler and I. Jarvis for their guidance during his EC fellowship at Jaume Almera Institute, Barcelona, Spain and Kingston University, UK.Peer reviewe