Sheh, Jia

Shen, Xiao-Jian

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Association for Information SystemsAIS Electronic Library (AISeL)AMCIS 2001 Proceedings Americas Conference on Information Systems(AMCIS)December 2001User Requirements in Mobile SystemsJia ShehNew Jersey Institute of TechnologyXiao-Jian ShenBeijing Polytechnic UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2001This material is brought to you by the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been acceptedfor inclusion in AMCIS 2001 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contactelibrary@aisnet.org.Recommended CitationSheh, Jia and Shen, Xiao-Jian, "User Requirements in Mobile Systems" (2001). AMCIS 2001 Proceedings. 260.http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2001/2602001  Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems 1341USER REQUIREMENTS IN MOBILE SYSTEMSJia ShenCollaborative Hypermedia and PervasiveResearch LabNew Jersey Institute of Technologyjxs1866@njit.eduXiaoJian ShenE-Commerce and Network Technology TrackBeijing Polytechnic Universityshjy@public.gb.comAbstractIt has long been realized that knowing precisely what to build is the hardest single part of building a system,and the saying holds true in mobile systems. This paper identifies challenges that mobile systems pose inrequirements engineering and examined seven studies selected from recent literature in both research andacademic worlds. These leads to one conclusion: the current status of practice in mobile systems is more proneto giving users what we have, not asking users what they want. To solve these issues, methods aimed ateffective and efficient requirements gathering and analysis in mobile systems are proposed.IntroductionThough wireless voice communication has been around for a while, truly mobile systems and applications have just started. Theversatile applications span from PDAs to wearable computers to electronic gadgets attached to GPS receivers. Despite of all thehypes and promises, the current mobile systems and applications are disappointing. This paper aims at tracing these issues backto their origin: the requirements phase. In particular, the research questions are:• What are the challenges that mobile systems pose in requirements gathering and analysis?• What is the current status of practice of requirements engineering for development of mobile systems?• What methods would be effective in conducting requirements engineering in mobile systems?Given this is a new field, there are very few work that have been done so far. The limited researches that have been conductedare rarely from requirements perspective, but are mainly usability studies after systems have already been developed.Challenges of Mobile Systems in Requirements EngineeringCompared with fixed-location applications, mobile systems have the following characteristics: [Rodden, 1999] [Pascoe et al, 1999]• Dynamic environment: The interaction between system and user is highly fluid.• Contextual: Applications are highly related to the context of where they are in.• Limited Attention: Users can only pay limited attention to applications• Spurts of activity: Activities in time-dependant observations happen in spurts.Based on these characteristics, the challenges that mobile systems pose in requirements engineering are:1. Users don’t know what they want.  This known-fact in requirement engineering get worse in mobile systems as users canonly have remote imagination of mobile systems that they have never used before.2. No fixed forms of interaction.  In order to get requirements, it is necessary to identify typical use cases. In mobile computingand communication system, this is hard to accomplish because of the dynamic and contextual nature of mobile systems.Diversified users, tasks, contexts and the interaction between these factors are hard to describe and thus makes requirementsgathering difficult.IS and S/W Design, Development, and Use1342 2001  Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems3. Context dependent.  Because applications are highly integrated into their context of activities, traditional requirementsgathering methods that separate users from their real working environment don’t work. 4. Project schedule and confidential concerns make large requirements gathering activities impractical.  Mobile and wirelesssystems market are highly competitive. Actual projects are always under extremely tight schedule and highly confidentialto retain the first mover advantage. Thus only limited requirement elicitation and analysis can be carried out.Selected Studies of Requirements Engineering in Mobile SystemsTable 1. Selected Studies in Mobile SystemsNo. Researchers Purpose Subjects Methods Sample Findings1. Pascoe et al. To get usabilityof mobiledevices in fieldworkenvironmentFieldworkers—e.g. ecologistsand archeologists % Iterative process usingprototyping applications onPalm Pilots%Needs for in-directiveoperation, e.g. eye-free /single-hand operations• Needs for context-awarenessapplications, e.g. use a GPSreceiver attached to Palm andautomatically fill in locationinfo2. Brown et. al. To learninformationcapture practiceat work fordesign ofinformationcapture devices11 professionalswho worked atHewlett Packard%Diary method using digitalcameras for one week torecord incidents ofinformation capturing• Semi-structured interviews% Taxonomy of informationcapture activities• Detailed descriptions ofsubjects’ capture practice.3. Koskinen Short MessageService—Itscurrent use,impact on socialnorms, valuesetc. Young adultsbetween 20-25years% Ethnographic research,iterative process• Individual/ group interview• Participatory/non-participatory observation(Expected results will be usedfor user interface & applicationdesign for Nokia)4. Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila& Ruusk  Gather Users’needs and designideas for Nokia9000Communicator6 mobileprofessionals%Observation for a few hoursof each subject.  • Contextual inquiry andaffinity diagram to identifyemerging themes of users’activities. %Users needed to organizeinfo according to their ownlogic—provide means forpersonalization• Frequent contact info neededto be treated differently thanother contacts.5. Palen et al. Behavior andpractice of newmobile phoneusers19 new mobilephone users% Three interviews for eachuser during the first 6 weeksafter service acquisition• Voice-mail “diaries”%Mobile devices wereintegrated into daily life andsocial life. 6. Hjelmeroos etal. (Usabilitystudy)Nokia 9000Communicatorbrowser usability--internal/externalconsistentGroup1:novices/friendlyusersGroup 2: errorhunters +developers ofthird-partysoftware% Interview (video taped)• Questionnaire% “Hot list” as default homepage worked fine• Functional layers wereconfusing• “Back” & “Previous” buttonwere confusing7. Nielsen J.(Usabilitystudy)Effectiveness ofWAP (WirelessApplicationProtocol)20 experiencedmobile phoneusers in UK% Self-recorded diary• Usability test • Interview % 70% said that they would notbe using WAP in a year• Time-consuming andexpensive. E.g. check localweather took about 2 minutesShen & Shen/User Requirements in Mobile Systems2001  Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems 1343Of these seven studies, the first five were conducted on the purpose of getting requirements. Study 6 and 7 are both usabilitystudies that were conducted after products were developed. Suggestions in Conducting Requirements Engineering in Development of Mobile SystemsThe two major phases in requirements engineering are requirements elicitation and analysis. In requirements elicitation phase,the methods frequently used are interviews, self-reported diaries, and participatory observation. These methods are mainly basedon heuristics and result in qualitative results or ad hoc comments from users. In the requirements analysis phase the methods usedare context inquiry and prototyping. These methods also lack of formality. The iterative process between requirements elicitationand analysis depends heavily on effective use of qualitative results to refine prototype. The current practice of this phase is donein an ad hoc way either. To improve the situation, the following approaches are proposed:• Context based requirement gathering.  Mobile applications are highly dependent on their contexts. Analysts of mobile systemsneed to catch dynamics of systems in “Life World”.  This approach is similar to what has been used in social science wherethe world in which people live is incorporated into researches.  To get requirements in mobile environment, it is necessaryto go into users’ real life to capture their needs of system. For example Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila and Ruuska [1998] usedcontextual inquiry method to get users requirements for Nokia 9000 communicator. This method can  be used in the earlyphases to get input and create basis for design ideas.• Prototyping for educating users and developers alike.  The importance of prototyping in getting requirements cannot beoverstressed. Prototyping is especially useful when the requirements are not clearly understood. [Gomaa, 1990]. Mobilesystems present a whole new world of future communication and computing patterns, and users’ needs are vague at thecurrent stage. Using prototyping can make users and developers clear of what users want and what are feasible to achieve.• Formative evaluation.  One important usage of prototyping is to get further requirements from users. These requirements areusually in the form of qualitative information, such as interviews, diaries etc. How to make effective use of such informationto improve prototype is a crucial issue. A method called formative evaluation [Galal, 2000], which aims at shaping the systemthrough iterative prototyping and evaluation process, was proposed. Other methods based on mathematics can also be appliedin the analysis of qualitative information.• Scenario analysis.  Scenario analysis is the process of understanding, analyzing, and describing system behavior in terms ofparticular ways the system are expected to be used. [Hsia, 94]. This method is particularly suitable for mobile systemdevelopment because of users and engineers can break down highly diversified tasks into scenarios in which users can betterdescribe their needs. The end product of scenario analysis is a document that consists of sets of correct, complete, consistent,and validated scenarios. These scenarios can be used as guideline for system design and testing as well.• Establish user profile.  Due to the confidential and competitive nature of mobile industry, it is impossible to conduct fullyscaled studies given limited resource constraints. Establishing user profile helps analysts quickly identify needs for newproducts. Previous research results can be used to establish these profiles, such as young adults, or new mobile phone userspractice. These profiles are also helpful when no overt users for products under development are available. Future ResearchesGiven time and resources limits, the current research focused mainly on literature published in conference proceedings in recentthree years. Future research needs to expand the breadth of the coverage. The mobile devices markets in US and Japan are ofparticular interest and should be included in the research, given resources availability. Besides extending the breadth, the depth of research is another avenue to pursue. For example, case studies of prevalent mobiledevices from Scandinavian countries such as Nokia 9000 communicator and its relative unpopularity in US would be another topicto explore. IS and S/W Design, Development, and Use1344 2001  Seventh Americas Conference on Information SystemsAcknowledgementsPartial support for this research is being provided by the New Jersey Center for Pervasive Information Technology(http://www.ee.princeton.edu/~njpit/).  Special thanks go to Professor Ravi Paul, Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff for theiradvice and continuous support.ReferencesReferences are available upon request with the first author.

User Requirements in Mobile Systems

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User Requirements in Mobile Systems

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