MaramaAI: Automated and Visual Approach for Inconsistency Checking of Requirements

Abstract

Abstract-Requirements are commonly vague and ambiguous. In this paper, we describe an automated Inconsistency Checker called Marama AI for checking for high-level inconsistency between textual requirements, abstract interactions and Essential Use Cases. We use concepts of phrase extraction and essential interaction patterns to carry out these checks. We provide further support for checking of requirements quality attributes such as completeness and correctness using visual differencing. Keywords-higher level inconsistency, essential interaction pattern, visual differencing I.INTRODUCTION It is acknowledged by many that natural language requirements are very often error prone, imprecise and ambiguous [1], [2]. In order to deal with these issues much research has been aimed at checking of requirements consistency, completeness and correctness either by using heuristic algorithms and formal models [3], [4] or semiformal models [5], [6]. In our previous work [7,8], we have introduced the MaramaAI tool for capturing requirements from natural language descriptions and helping to manage requirements inconsistency. The tool captures the essential requirements in the form of abstract interactions from natural language requirements and then transforms it to a semi-formal representation called Essential Use Cases. Besides capturing requirements, it also triggers inconsistency warnings if any inconsistency occurs between the textual requirement, abstract interaction and Essential Use Cases. However, triggering simple inconsistency warnings between these requirement elements is not adequate to make sure the requirements are completely consistent.

Uso de técnicas de procesamiento de lenguaje natural para la detección de requerimientos de software

“…MaramaAI es una herramienta que tiene como objetivo la calidad de los requerimientos a través de verificar la coherencia, integridad y corrección de los requerimientos a través de un algoritmo heurístico y modelos formales que capturan los requerimientos en forma de interacciones abstractas y los transforma en una representación semiformal denominada casos de uso esenciales (Kamalrudin, Hosking, & Grundy, 2010). Además de capturar los requerimientos, esta herramienta genera advertencias si se detecta una inconsistencia al capturar los requerimientos a través de una biblioteca de patrones de interacción esencial.…”

Profile-Oriented Assessment of Software Requirements Quality: Models, Metrics, Case Study

“…complex model, which can describe a quality of software requirements profile and a corresponding model, which can assess a quality of such profile with the use of nomenclature of metrics, are absent; 3. Articles, in which authors make attempts to fully automate the process of software requirements quality assessment, are [16][17][18]. First of all, task must be done before automating the assessment process necessary development of approach to software requirements profile assessment.…”

Generating essential user interface prototypes to validate requirements

“…However, developing such prototypes requires effort [10] and is poorly supported by toolsets [11]. In previous work we have developed a technique and toolset for checking consistency of requirements based on Essential Use Case (EUC) diagrams [12][13][14].These EUCs are semi-formal models which we automatically extract from natural language requirements and validate against known EUC patterns. Here, we describe a significant extension of this work providing end to end rapid prototyping support.…”