Requirements Gathering

CSCI 4800/6800
Feb. 25, 2003
Goals

 What does the client want/need? (goal: go from

vague to specific)
 Representation of problems with current
system
 Representation of requirements of new system
Techniques

 Interviewing/questionnaires
 Observation
 Document analysis
 Prototyping
 Checklists
Types of Requirements

 Functional - what system must do

 Data - structure of system or data
neccessary
 Usability - acceptable levels of user
performance & satisfaction
Functional Requirements

 Both human & system

 Dataflow diagrams
 Data dictionaries
Data Requirements

 Entity-Relationship diagrams
Usability requirements

 Learnability
 Throughput
 Flexibility
 Attitude
Functional Requirements
 What the system does
 What the user does
 Result of analysis & collecting requirements is
functional specification
 Dataflow diagrams
 Document or other representation
 Separate modules
 Organized hierarchically
Functional Requirements
 Databases - more persistent than dataflows
 An abstraction of the existing system, not a copy of the
current physical process
 Basis for structured walkthrough - verbal
description of the system based on the
diagrammatic representation
 Other approaches:
 Flow charts
 Scenarios - good for HCI
Data Requirements

 Attention on structure rather than processing

 Elicit using
 Observation
 Document analysis
 Interviewing
 etc.
Data Requirements
 Entity-Relationship (ER) diagrams used with formal
descriptions of data elemtents, entities, &
relationships kept in a data dictionary, to describe
structure & context of the data in a system
 Entity - aggregation of a number of data elements
(attributes of the entity)
 Entity type - classification according to shared
attributes/attribute types
 Relationships - association between two or more
entities
Usability requirements
 Easy to learn & remember, Useful, Easy & pleasant to use
 Learnability
– Time/effort to reach specified level
 Throughput
– Tasks accomplished by experienced users
– Speed of task execution
– Errors made
 Flexibility
– Extent to which system can accommodate changes
 Attitude
Determining usability
requirements:
 Task analysis – (next section)
– determine cognitive and other characteristics required
of users by system (search strategy, prereq knowledge,
cognitive loading, etc.)
 User analysis –
– determine scope of population who will use the system
– user modeling techiques may be applied here;
typically use checklists
 Environment analysis
– where system will operatre
Task Analysis

 determine cognitive and other

characteristics required of users by
system
– search strategy
– prereq knowledge
– cognitive loading
– etc.
User Analysis

 User analysis –
– determine scope of population who will use
the system
– user modeling techiques may be applied
here
– typically use checklists
Environment Analysis

 where system will operate

– Physical aspects
– User support environment
– more
Usability requirements

 Expressed as usability metrics

– Completion time for specific tasks by specific
set or type of user
– Number of errors per task
– Time spent using documentation
Usability metrics
 time to complete task
 % of task complete
 % complete per unit time
 success:failure ratio
 time spent on errors
 % number of errors
 number of commands
used
 frequency of doc/help use
 time spent in help/doc
 favorable:unfavorable
comments
 number of reps. of failed
commands
 number of successful runs
 number of failure runs
 number of times interface
misleads user
 .... & more
Components of usability
 Learnability
– time and effort required to reach a specified level of use
performance (‘ease of learning’)
 Throughput
– tasks accomplished by experienced users
– speed of task execution, number and type of errors
 Flexibility
– extent to which system can accomodate change
 Attitude
– do users like it?
Usability study

 the act of gathering usability requirements

 involves:
– task analysis
– user analysis
– environment analysis
Task analysis

 determine characteristics, particularly

cognitive characteristics, required of users by
system
– search strategy
– pre-req knowledge
– cognitive loading
User analysis

 determine scope of user population that will

use system
– intellectual ability, cognitive processing ability,
previous experience, physical capabilities
 typically a checklist description, rather than
chart or diagram as in dataflow and E-R
Environment analysis

 physical environment
– temperature, humidity, lighting, available space
 social environment
– quiet/loud, busy/isolated, etc.
 user support environment
– helpful/hostile