Pushing Boundaries of RE: Requirement Elicitation for Non-human Users

Abstract

With the advance of modern technologies, computerbased systems for animals are gaining popularity. In particular, there is an explosion of products and gadgets for pets: wellness monitoring applications (e.g., FitBark and PetPace), automatic food dispensers, cognitive enrichment apps, and many more. Furthermore, the discipline of Animal-Computer Interaction has emerged, focusing on a user-centric development of technologies for animals, making them stakeholders in the development process. Animal-centric technologies have already been developed to support activities of rescue and assistance dogs, to provide environmental and cognitive enrichment for animals in captivity, and to support conservation and animal behavior research. Going beyond human stakeholders poses new exciting challenges for requirement engineering and can be used to significantly expand its boundaries under broader theoretical and methodological frameworks. This paper highlights these challenges and proposes a research agenda for developing methodologies for requirement elicitation and analysis for a user-centric development of computerized systems for non-human users.

Interspecies information systems

“…Requirements engineering research has discussed the difficulty yet importance of eliciting (and understanding!) animal stakeholders' requirements [34,86,121] and the need to integrate them into the way we develop technology [101]-albeit in an abstract context. Research has designed interactions to enrich farm animals' physical and mental well-being [28], as well as adapted existing digital technology for captive zoo animals to increase public engagement and understanding [113] by allowing zoo visitors to observe animals interacting with technology familiar to them.…”

“…Since then, more RE work has considered the challenge of eliciting requirements from non-humans (cf. [34,86,121]) and integrating them into development methods [101]. Yet, the design and use of an IIS may lead to unexpected real-world challenges that transcend beyond the individual people, animals, and technology they envelop, as existing research investigating the use of animal-centered technology has hinted at [102,103,122].…”

Developing Zoo Technology Requirements for White-Faced Saki Monkeys

“…This process is not dissimilar to the role adults take in child-computer interaction systems with very young children [32]. Requirements gathering in proxy in ACI ranges from consulting caretakers of the animals such as their keepers [12,39] or owners [16,17,33], to consulting animal welfare and behavioral specialists [45]. Humans also explore through design [10,18,44] but this often does not involve the animal.…”

A Method for Evaluating Animal Usability (MEAU)

“…Given the sensory, physical and cognitive differences between human evaluators and animal users, and the biases that inevitably influence designers' expectations, the assessment of animals' responses against empirical measures is key. In this regard, the accurate analysis and interpretation of data collected during empirical studies with animals is paramount [31,32]. To minimize the impact of the human evaluator's bias on the interpretation of the animals' behavior, our method applies various data collection metrics and design compliance rating scales to help designers assess the extent to which the interaction being evaluated adheres to relevant usability goals.…”