Software engineering: the art of the user interview

Abstract

The specification of a system is a major problem. One useful technique is to involve users in the design process. This requires considerable skill on the part of the software professionals. As one component of our software engineering course we are trying to develop this skill.We ask our students to design a system, and as a part of developing the system specification we give them an opportunity to interview a "user."Since real users are often not very helpful, we deliberately arrange that our "users"will be obtuse regarding technical details of the system. We then conduct follow-up classroom discussion which, we hope, will leave the students with a much more realistic idea of what to expect from a user. A skillful interviewer can often gain valuable insights from users into which aspects of the system are most important to the specifications.