Discovering affect-laden requirements to achieve system acceptance

Abstract

Abstract-Novel envisioned systems face the risk of rejection by their target user community and the requirements engineer must be sensitive to the factors that will determine acceptance or rejection. Conventionally, technology acceptance is determined by perceived usefulness and ease-of-use, but in some domains other factors play an important role. In healthcare systems, particularly, ethical and emotional factors can be crucial. In this paper we describe an approach to requirements discovery that we developed for such systems. We describe how we have applied our approach to a novel system to passively monitor users for signs of cognitive decline consistent with the onset of dementia. A key challenge was eliciting users' reactions to emotionally charged events never before experienced by them at first hand. Our goal was to understand the range of users' emotional responses and their values and motivations, and from these formulate requirements that would maximise the likelihood of acceptance of the system. The problem was heightened by the fact that the key stakeholders were elderly people who represent a poorly studied user constituency. We discuss the elicitation and analysis methodologies used, and our experience with tool support. We conclude by reflecting on the affect issues for RE and for technology acceptance.

Known and unknown requirements in healthcare

“…The requirements activity in the shaded components form the subject matter of this paper. The initial requirements analysis was reported in [1] and further detail on the project approach is given in [2].…”

“…Healthcare systems are often large scale, complex, with uncertain knowledge 1 , and consequently pose considerable problems for requirements engineering (RE). Although codesign or participatory design with domain experts has been advocated as a means of dealing with these problems, evidence for the success of such approaches 1 is sparse.…”

“…In this paper, we report experience adapting requirements analysis techniques to address the problems which emerged in a healthcare system. The objective of the SAMS (Software Architecture for Mental Health Self-management) project was to detect early signs of dementia by analysis of recordings of computer activity and e-mail text [1,2] to detect changes in behaviour that may indicate onset of pathology. If potentially significant changes are detected, the system should send an alert to the users urging them to contact their doctor for follow-up tests.…”

“…In [1], we reported requirements analysis experience focusing on end users whose health will be monitored by the SAMS software. In contrast, this paper reports the projectwide requirements analysis experience with domain experts, design and user requirements.…”

Combining Mouse and Keyboard Events with Higher Level Desktop Actions to Detect Mild Cognitive Impairment

“…The SAMS end-user requirements are detailed in [20] and although currently only a prototype and therefore without any alerting mechanism to warn participants of possible cognitive decline, the SAMS monitoring tool fulfils a number of requirements in order to ensure participation in our studies and to fulfil our ethical obligations to the users. The following requirements were elicited and agreed for the prototype SAMS implementation [20]):…”