Towards a Domain-Specific Language to Specify Interaction Scenarios for Web-Based Graphical User Interfaces

Abstract

The communication gap between software developers and subject-matter experts is one of the foremost long-standing problems in software development. The level of formality of the user requirements specification has a strong impact on the ability of these two groups to communicate effectively. Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) are seen as one of the potential solutions to address this issue by raising the abstraction level of the software specification while keeping the necessary formalism to allow for software analysis, design, and verification. This paper discusses the ongoing development of a high-level DSL and its rich editing environment to allow the specification of consistent and testable interaction scenarios as user requirements for web-based graphical user interfaces. The language grammar has been developed based on the Gherkin syntax that supports Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD). Results of a preliminary evaluation regarding the consistency of actions and states of interaction elements specified for web user interfaces showed that the grammar is able to support a consistent specification of BDD scenarios as user requirements at the interaction level.