Improving software requirements reasoning by novices: a story‐based approach

Abstract

Requirements elicitation is one of the essential steps towards software design and construction. Business analysts and stakeholders often face challenges in gathering or conveying key software requirements. There are many methods and tools designed by researchers and practitioners but with the persistent development of new technologies, there is a need to make requirements gathering and design-rationale process more efficient and adaptable. Storytelling is an emerging concept and researchers are witnessing its effectiveness in education, community building, information system, and requirement elicitation. Objectives of this study are to devise a method for requirements elicitation and improving design-rationales using story-based techniques and evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed activity. To answer the research objectives, the authors have conducted open-ended interviews to get feedback on the proposed method; the authors have case requirement from a running project to map how this method can be useful; and performed empirical evaluation of the proposed card-based activity. The estimated regression model, in our study, has shown that participants' perception about the simplicity/easiness and the joy of playing the game has an eventual positive effect on requirements elicitation through enhancing user's desire to play the game, which in turn increases the collaborative learning outcomes of the game.

Gamifying requirements: An empirical analysis of game‐based technique for novices

“…A detailed analysis of how the story-based technique (knowledge extracted from social engineering) can be helpful in improving software design rationales can be read in our previous research study. 7 The current research study extends and follows the same line of research on the utilization of social engineering knowledge and transferring it to requirements engineering. In our research, we found that social engineers use persuasion techniques to undermine their targets.…”

“…5,6 Despite the human and financial investment, many of the software projects failed because they lacked essential features. 7,8 One of the most significant reasons for project failures as reported by studies is inadequate requirements gathering and elicitation. Requirements gathering and elicitation are the most challenging phases of software development.…”

“…Requirements gathering and elicitation are the most challenging phases of software development. 7,9 Many challenges related to requirements gathering and elicitation are reported in the research literature; some are given here: (I) knowledge transfer 10,11 -in most cases, stakeholders (who are providing the information) do not have much in-depth knowledge of what they want coupled with an inability to transfer those concepts and information to the team/members; (II) proper communication, 11,12 due to many barriers such as language, culture, time zone, and experience; inadequate communication remains a threat and challenge in the elicitation process. Both the above-mentioned challenges are more evident if we see these challenges in the context of global software development; (III) stakeholder involvement 13,14 -stakeholder is the primary resource who is providing the detailed information regarding the system, his/her involvement is of great importance.…”

“…One of the most significant reasons for project failures as reported by studies is inadequate requirements gathering and elicitation. Requirements gathering and elicitation are the most challenging phases of software development 7,9 . Many challenges related to requirements gathering and elicitation are reported in the research literature; some are given here: (I) knowledge transfer 10,11 —in most cases, stakeholders (who are providing the information) do not have much in‐depth knowledge of what they want coupled with an inability to transfer those concepts and information to the team/members; (II) proper communication, 11,12 due to many barriers such as language, culture, time zone, and experience; inadequate communication remains a threat and challenge in the elicitation process.…”

Challenges and Customer Perception on E-Zwich Patronage in Rural Banks in Ghana

“…To improve customer's convenience, the banks further came out with additional benefits such as ebanking termed as personal computer (PC) it's a kind of banking service innovation. I come with proprietary software to corporate clients to visit their account through the Website, Fatima [19]. Most of the pioneers in PC banking services are GCB, Barclays, Stanbic, Standard Chartered, and Ecobank Ghana, this was to increase customer convenience and time.…”