Verbal use case specifications for informal requirements elicitation

Abstract

Constructing a software system from poor specifications may necessitate costly repairs. We introduce the notion "satisfactory specifications" for quality specifications that do not require costly repairs. Satisfactory specifications may be produced by a Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) team incorporating all the relevant experts and the stakeholders. It is suggested that the CSCW team develops use case specifications, where its expertise is especially useful. Specifying in a natural language understood by all team members facilitates needed intensive cooperation between different team members. Compared to specifications formulated in formal terminology, verbal formulations in domain language represent a textual visualization. Translating the verbal specifications into formal UML diagrams provides a further graphical visualization. It is suggested that each specification is provided with a separate example for each kind of the possible situations. These examples may clarify meaning of poorly formulated specifications, facilitate identifying faults in formal specifications and employed for software debugging. © 2014 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.