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Writing Effective Use Cases
... To further assist developers, we explore whether use case (UC) components can be extracted from the scenarios. UCs are effective structured techniques for presenting functional requirements [12], [13] and have gained wide acceptance among requirements analysts, designers, and testers [14]. Given userauthored scenarios as a source of requirements for a mobile app, an analyst can extract UC components (e.g., actors, goals, and interactions) by leveraging their own experience and skills, particularly those linguistic in nature [15]. ...
... A Use Case (UC) is a text document that captures the behavior of a system as it responds to a request from an individual actor [12]. The idea of UCs to describe functional requirements was introduced in 1986 by Ivar Jacobson [36], a primary contributor to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and the Unified Process (UP) [37], and has since been used as a primary tool for requirements specification. ...
... There are various guidelines in the literature for modeling UCs [39], [40]. Cockburn presents guidelines for writing UCs using natural language and provides several templates that are informally considered as industry standards [12]. Further, Cockburn proposes a pass/fail test containing 28 questions to check the quality of UC components. ...
Mobile applications (apps) are often developed by only a small number of developers with limited resources, especially in the early years of the app's development. In this setting, many requirements acquisition activities, such as interviews, are challenging or lower priority than development and release activities. Moreover, in this early period, requirements are frequently changing as mobile apps evolve to compete in the marketplace. As app development companies move to standardize their development processes, however, they will shift to documenting and analyzing requirements. One low-cost source of requirements post-deployment are user-authored scenarios describing how they interact with an app. We propose a method for extracting use case components from user-authored scenarios using large language models (LLMs). The method consists of a series of prompts that were developed to improve precision and recall on a ground truth dataset of 50 scenarios independently labeled with UC components. Our results reveal that LLMs require additional domain knowledge to extract UC components, and that refining prompts to include this knowledge improves the quality of the extracted UC components.
... They serve as a critical tool for understanding user needs, contextualizing design choices, fostering a shared understanding among multidisciplinary teams, and guiding the design process, thereby enhancing the usability and relevance of the final product (Van Der Bijl-Brouwer and Dorst, 2017). Having roots in requirements engineering from software development, user scenarios are crucial for visualizing the proposed product and aiding engineers in crafting detailed engineering specifications (Cockburn, 1999;Goodwin, 2011;Kaindl, 2005;Lim and Sato, 2006;Park, 2011). 'Engineering Specifications' is defined as a comprehensive technical description of a product's requirements, synonymous with terms like specifications, design specifications, and product specifications. ...
... User research designers create a persona, user stories, and user scenarios to define user needs, resulting in qualitative, narrative-based design information (Cockburn, 1999;Cooper et al., 2007;Jacobson et al., 2016). This approach, which focuses on user-product interaction, often misses specific functional requirements (Kaindl, 2005) and grapples with balancing detail and abstraction (Miaskiewicz and Kozar, 2011). ...
... At the same time, engineers develop a deeper appreciation of user-centered design principles. In addition, the framework's structured approach, combining diagrams and text, resonates with human cognitive processes, making it accessible even to novice designers and engineers (Cockburn, 1999;Lakoff, 2008). This systematic approach and clarity address the common issue of vague and ambiguous guidelines prevalent in conventional methods (Röder et al., 2011). ...
This study presents a three-stage framework to translate user scenarios into engineering specifications. We introduced 'Action Steps' as an intermediate tool to help convert user scenarios into functional requirements and engineering specifications. It facilitates aligning specifications with user needs by filling in the essential product information not revealed in user scenarios. Preliminary testing revealed that the proposed framework improved team understanding and reduced information gaps, showcasing its potential to enhance specification development and process efficiency.
... Natural language (NL) scenario descriptions, is one of the widely used techniques for eliciting and specifying functional requirements in industry [8] [9]. These techniques help to better understand the interactions between actors and a system [10] [11], focusing on the behavior of an application [12]. The most prominent languages to write scenarios are use case descriptions [10] [11], scenario descriptions [12], or their variations. ...
... These techniques help to better understand the interactions between actors and a system [10] [11], focusing on the behavior of an application [12]. The most prominent languages to write scenarios are use case descriptions [10] [11], scenario descriptions [12], or their variations. However, they lack precise semantics to: uncover the relationships among scenarios, support their early analysis, and highlight the defects. ...
... 9. The Broker System broadcast.. 10 The red edges and nodes represent the trace to possible defects. ...
... Thanks to intense communication and close collaboration within, preferably, colocated teams, agile software development can be very successful even with minimal actual efforts put into capturing requirements in a written form. This is why user stories, which are one-sentence "promises for a conversation between a requirements expert and a developer," as Cockburn denoted them [5], appear to be sufficient there. Cohn also suggests that it is better that the development team and the customer discuss the details [7]. ...
... Use cases are typical, goal oriented interactions of users and software systems [5]. They represent an inexpensive means of exploring what really a software system should enable. ...
... Use cases can be seen as a way of generalizing collections of related scenarios [5], specific stories of what can happen when a user attempts to reach a particular goal. The value of collecting and analyzing scenarios has been recognized by Carroll in his scenario-based design [4,21]. ...
With so much confusion around use case modeling, software developers may be reluctant to apply it. However, use cases are easy to apply and have great benefits even in research settings with nonprofessional software developers involved. We report on our experience on this within an innovative tourist information system developed in a research setting of an ongoing Horizon 2020 project named Promotion of Rural Museums and Heritage Sites in the Vicinity of European Pilgrimage Routes (rurAllure). The resulting use case model comprises forty use cases supported by class diagrams, use case diagrams, sequence diagrams, as well as by the domain model and dictionary. Three quarters of use cases have been implemented at least to some extent. Writing use cases provoked intense communication, which helped consolidate the system architecture. The use cases helped validate and better understand the GUI form wireframes designed beforehand and get quickly to a consistent implementation of the system that can be experimented with further in different ways. Finally, the forthcoming extensive system and user experience testing will be guided by the use case model. The paper also exposes the domain model and dictionary along with selected use cases and the hierarchy of user and system actors, which may be useful as such or as a stimulus for the development of other innovative tourist information systems.
... The basic idea in this model is to define quality via a set of system properties and their associations to activities carried out during the use of the system [15]. For AMDiRE, this means that we define quality via (1) abstract goals [14] over different levels of abstraction to motivate the refinement of behaviour. This behaviour is specified via (2) generic scenarios that define which non-functional activities the system shall support (e.g., activities the administrator carries out), and, finally, refine those scenarios to (3) assessable quality requirements, which then are used to motivate design decision in a component architecture. ...
... Use Cases describe sequences of interaction between Actors (realising user groups) and the system as a whole. More precisely, a use case represents a collection of interaction scenarios, each defining a set of interrelated actions that either are executed by an actor or by the system under consideration [14]. For each use case, there is at least one Functional Scenario in which Actors participate. ...
The various influences in the processes and application domains make Requirements Engineering (RE) inherently complex and difficult to implement. In general, we have two options for establishing an RE approach: we can either establish an activity-based RE approach or we can establish an artefact-based one where project participants concentrate on the RE artefacts rather than on the way of creating them. While a number of activity-based RE approaches have been proposed in recent years, we have gained much empirical evidence and experiences about the advantages of the artefact-based paradigm for RE. However, artefact orientation is still a young paradigm with various interpretations and practical manifestations whereby we need a clear understanding of its basic concepts and a consolidated and evaluated view on the paradigm. In this article, we contribute an artefact-based approach to RE (AMDiRE) that emerges from six years of experiences in fundamental and evidence-based research. To this end, we first discuss the basic notion of artefact orientation and its evolution in recent years. We briefly introduce a set of artefact-based RE models we developed in industrial research cooperations for different application domains, show their empirical evaluations, and their dissemination into academia and practice, eventually leading to the AMDiRE approach. We conclude with a discussion of experiences we made during the development and different industrial evaluations, and lessons learnt.
... In this case, as in many of the other examples, the practitioners stated that no developer could implement this story properly. They also recalled various discussions in estimation meetings on what was to be done to complete these types of stories 13 . ...
... Table A.11: Checklist for the students' requirements reviews. Created by Anke Drappa, Patricia Mandl-Striegnitz and Holger Röder based on [13] and [53]. Translated from German. ...
Bad requirements quality can cause expensive consequences during the software development lifecycle, especially if iterations are long and feedback comes late. %-- the faster a problem is found, the cheaper it is to fix. This makes explicit the need of a lightweight detection mechanism of requirements quality violations. We aim at a light-weight static requirements analysis approach that allows for rapid checks immediately when requirements are written down. We transfer the concept of code smells to Requirements Engineering as Requirements Smells. To evaluate the benefits and limitations, we define Requirements Smells, realize our concepts for a smell detection in a prototype called Smella and apply Smella in a series of cases provided by three industrial and a university context. The automatic detection yields an average precision of 59% at an average recall of 82% with high variation. The evaluation in practical environments indicates benefits such as an increase of the awareness of quality defects. Yet, some smells were not clearly distinguishable. Lightweight smell detection can uncover many practically relevant requirements defects in a reasonably precise way. Although some smells need to be defined more clearly, smell detection provides a helpful means to support quality assurance in Requirements Engineering, for instance, as a supplement to reviews.
... Os Casos de Uso já são bem conhecidos e especificam o comportamento de um sistema, ou parte dele, sendo uma descrição de um conjunto de sequências de ações, incluindo as possíveis variações nestas ações, que produzem um resultado observável de valor para um ator [7,22]. Assim, casos de uso são representados tanto na forma diagramática [22] quanto textual [3]. ...
... Em particular, a ferramenta automatiza a obtenção de casos de usos via diretrizes já propostas em [14]. A partir das diretrizes, a ferramenta interpreta os modelos organizacionais, gerando os casos de uso UML [7,22] bem como suas descrições textuais, seguindo o template adaptado de [3]. Desta forma, a ferramenta Jgoose gera casos de uso com base nas intencionalidades e dependências dos atores, em um determinado ambiente organizacional. ...
Ferramentas CASE devem também considerar apoiar engenheiros de software a garantir a consistência entre artefatos gerados. Em particular, se um artefato é usado como base para gerar outro é importante que ambos permaneçam consistentes após mudanças realizadas durante a evolução do software. Em trabalhos prévios têm sido proposta uma ferramenta computacional para apoiar a derivação de casos de uso UML a partir de modelos organizacionais iStar. Contudo, mudanças posteriores realizadas nos modelos de casos de uso não eram refletidas nos modelos iStar usados como base, gerando inconsistências na documentação de requisitos. Considerando este problema, regras de garantia de consistência (RGCs) foram propostas e implementadas na ferramenta, permitindo que engenheiros de requisitos possam fazer mudanças em modelos de casos de uso e, de forma semiautomática, atualizar os modelos iStar associados. Esta funcionalidade é apresentada neste artigo.
... In the first phase, we reviewed the complete operational flow that a customer or policyholder can engage in from the moment they purchase a policy, regardless of the insurance branch or the nature of the insurance company. To achieve this, we adopted a use-case-based methodology [20], from which the following use cases were defined. Figure 1 illustrates these use cases. ...
... Once again, a use-case-based methodology [20] has been adopted to analyze the project requirements. Based on this analysis, the following functional and non-functional requirements have been defined. ...
This article presents a Blockchain-based solution for the management of multipolicies in insurance companies, introducing a standardized policy model to facilitate streamlined operations and enhance collaboration between entities. The model ensures uniform policy management, providing scalability and flexibility to adapt to new market demands. The solution leverages Merkle trees for secure data management, with each policy represented by an independent Merkle tree, enabling updates and additions without altering existing policies. The architecture, implemented on a private Ethereum network using Hyperledger Besu and Tessera, ensures secure and transparent transactions, robust dispute resolution, and fraud prevention mechanisms. The validation phase demonstrated the model’s efficiency in reducing data redundancy and ensuring the consistency and integrity of policy information. Additionally, the system’s technical management has been simplified, operational redundancies have been eliminated, and privacy is enhanced.
... Step 1, is a user-goal level description of a use case [12]. ...
... 860 Once the monitoring setup is in place, the use case needs 861 to be executed via the presentation layer of the application 862 under test, and the monitoring tool will observe and collect 863 information on the internal operations. To acquire an 864 exhaustive overview of the underlying logic, this phase 865 requires exercising both the main success scenario and their 866 variations [12]. ...
Context. When testing three-tiered architectures, strategies often rely on superficial information, e.g., black-box input. However, the correct behavior of software-intensive systems based on such architectural pattern also depends on the logic hidden behind the interface. Verifying the response process is thus often complex and requires ad-hoc strategies. Objective. We propose an approach to identify faults hidden behind the presentation layer. The model-based approach uses an architectural abstraction called managed component Data Flow Graph (mcDFG). The mcDFG is aware of the interactions between all layers of the architecture and guides the generation of tests based on different mcDFG coverage criteria to identify faults in the business logic. Method. To evaluate the approach viability, we consider a three-tiered web application and 32 faults. The fault detection capability is assessed by comparing a set of test suites created by following our method and a set of test suites developed by utilizing traditional testing strategies. Results. The collected data show that the proposed model-based approach is a viable option to identify faults hidden in the logic layer, as it can outperform standard strategies based solely on the presentation layer while keeping the number of test cases and number of interactions per test case low.
... Still, on the other hand, they can be misinterpreted or incomplete [1]. Therefore, many researchers (e.g., [2], [3], [4]) try to define templates, a set of patterns or rules that help to keep use-case specifications complete, coherent, and consistent. ...
... [2]), or extensions (e.g. [3]). Use-case flow is typically expressed in terms of actions. ...
... "This involves a detailed understanding of the functions, behavior, and performance of the required system, as well as its interconnection with other systems in the environment", [13]. "Techniques such as user requirements analysis, use case diagrams and user meetings may be considered as requirements are captured", [14]. "These techniques allow for better identification and documentation of user needs and system requirements, providing a solid foundation for subsequent stages of development", [15] Using the interview technique through the structured questionnaire, the activities carried out in this phase correspond to the capture of requirements, which takes place in meetings held with the user. ...
In the current era, the scientific and technological production of universities and research institutions is a key factor in advancing knowledge and development. Therefore, having tools to efficiently manage, analyze, and visualize this production becomes essential. However, at the Technical University of Cotopaxi, despite having the Ecuciencia platform to compile this information, there was no efficient method to represent and visualize the similarities and distances between researchers based on their publications and research lines. The main objective of this research is to establish methods based on classification algorithms such as K-means, Spectral Clustering, and Agglomerative Clustering, to determine the similarity and distance between researchers at the university, based on the analysis of their scientific production registered in Ecuciencia, this will allow generating similarity matrices to identify communities of researchers with shared characteristics according to the number of shared publications. This graphical representation will facilitate the analysis of institutional scientific productivity, the detection of patterns, and strategic decision-making regarding research policies. The results obtained will thus strengthen the knowledge management capabilities at the Technical University of Cotopaxi.
... This paper centers on computational defects, for which testers can create specific scenarios. Use case testing is the most commonly used test design technique [2], [3]; however, it has limitations, as certain systems may harbour defects that this technique fails to detect. The main reason is that use cases do not account for states. ...
... They substantiate the functionality of a system and enable users to judge whether they presume to be able to use the system and whether they like it. Natural language is the most common notation to document scenarios [1], [6], for example in the format of the use case template [7]. According to Ambler [8], however, textual representations are the worst documentation option regarding communication. ...
Requirements engineering provides several practices to analyze how a user wants to interact with a future software. Mockups, prototypes, and scenarios are suitable to understand usability issues and user requirements early. Nevertheless, users are often dissatisfied with the usability of a resulting software. Apparently, previously explored information was lost or no longer accessible during the development phase. Scenarios are one effective practice to describe behavior. However, they are commonly notated in natural language which is often improper to capture and communicate interaction knowledge comprehensible to developers and users. The dynamic aspect of interaction is lost if only static descriptions are used. Digital prototyping enables the creation of interactive prototypes by adding responsive controls to hand- or digitally drawn mockups. We propose to capture the events of these controls to obtain a representation of the interaction. From this data, we generate videos, which demonstrate interaction sequences, as additional support for textual scenarios. Variants of scenarios can be created by modifying the captured event sequences and mockups. Any change is unproblematic since videos only need to be regenerated. Thus, we achieve video as a by-product of digital prototyping. This reduces the effort compared to video recording such as screencasts. A first evaluation showed that such a generated video supports a faster understanding of a textual scenario compared to static mockups.
... In a first step, we started with the use case definition, following the principle in [17]. For this purpose, we organized a workshop that included the blind co-designer (P0), one developer, and two accessibility and usability experts (one of them is a blind person). ...
Assistive technology can be leveraged by blind people when searching for objects in their daily lives. We created ObjectFinder, an open-vocabulary interactive object-search prototype, which combines object detection with scene description and navigation. It enables blind persons to detect and navigate to objects of their choice. Our approach used co-design for the development of the prototype. We further conducted need-finding interviews to better understand challenges in object search, followed by a study with the ObjectFinder prototype in a laboratory setting simulating a living room and an office, with eight blind users. Additionally, we compared the prototype with BeMyEyes and Lookout for object search. We found that most participants felt more independent with ObjectFinder and preferred it over the baselines when deployed on more efficient hardware, as it enhances mental mapping and allows for active target definition. Moreover, we identified factors for future directions for the development of object-search systems.
... Abstraksi sistem notifikasi yang dikembangkan dimodelkan dalam bentuk diagram use case (Cockburn, 2001) dan diimplementasikan seperti dalam gambar 2. ...
SMA Negeri 1 Kalasan adalah salah satu sekolah negeri yang termasuk kategori sekolah andalan di Kabupaten Sleman, yang berada di wilayah sleman timur yang sudah menerapkan standar iso 9001-2008. Peningkatan manajemen mutu berkelanjutan adalah salah satu hal utama untuk mencapai visi dan misi yang sudah ditetapkan sekolah. Kepuasan pelanggan adalah salah satu kunci untuk peningkatan mutu berkelanjutan. Informasi pembayaran sekolah adalah salah satu layanan sekolah. Pelayanan secara manual yaitu siswa bertanya ke tata usaha dan pemberian informasi oleh wali kelas di tengah dan akhir semester merupakan salah satu kelemahan dalam implementasi layanan ini. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengembangkan aplikasi mobile, aplikasi client-server berbasis web, serta web servis sebagai sebuah cara untuk memberikan notifikasi mobile berupa layanan pembayaran biaya sekolah, dengan studi kasus pada SMA Negeri 1 Kalasan. Metode yang digunakan untuk mengembangkan aplikasi ini adalah metode waterfall. Hasil penelitian ini menghasilkan rancangan berupa: 1)hasil analisis kebutuhan, 2)Rancangan penelitian, 3)Model use case diagram, 4)Pengiriman dan Umpan balik. Kata kunci : android, Client-Server, notifikasi mobile, web servis
... No trabalho de (Sarmiento-Calisaya et al., 2020) foi desenvolvido uma ferramenta, baseado em Processamento de Linguagem Natural e Redes de Petri, para analisar Descrições de Casos de Uso baseados no template Cockburn (Cockburn, 2001). A ferramenta foi utilizada para detectar problemas de ambiguidade, completude e inconsistência de template. ...
A Especificação de Requisitos de Linguagem Natural é a tipo mais comum de documentação usada no desenvolvimento de sistemas. No entanto, a Linguagem Natural, devido à má escrita, pode geram ambiguidade e outros defeitos que acabam comprometendo os critérios de qualidade de requisitos como compreensão, clareza, completude e outros. Requirements Smells são problemas de escrita na especificação de requisitos de linguagem natural. No entanto, não existem estudos sobre formas sistemáticas de corrigir Requirements Smells e garantir a Qualidade dos Requisitos. O objetivo deste trabalho consiste no desenvolvimento de Técnicas de Refatoração para corrigir Requirements Smells e garantir os Critérios de Qualidade. As técnicas de refatoração foram desenvolvidas seguindo o modelo proposto por Martin Fowler para refatoração de código. Espera-se que as aplicações das técnicas possam ser eficazes, trazendo diversos benefícios como a melhoria da qualidade.
... Functional requirements may be represented as a use case if there is an interaction with an actor as in [40][41][42], user story as in [17,[43][44][45] or traditional requirement as in [29,45]. User stories may contain some additional information about quality or acceptance criteria and are prepared following INVEST rules [17,43] rather than the quality criteria mentioned in [1, 18,37,39,45] for traditional requirements. ...
This article will discuss the software development process utilised in the GNSS-denied navigation project targeted for drones. The process was implemented in an environment where software developers were oriented to developing a source code only and who showed great reluctance to follow any formal process. The mentioned process was a lightweight AGILE-based process that, by assumption, minimised developers’ engagement in activities other than those related to the source code development. The process described in this paper was designed to support and reflect product quality characteristics like functional completeness and correctness, time behaviour, resource utilisation, analysability, modifiability and testability in an “implicit” way. It allowed the developers to achieve those characteristics in an “invisible” manner. This allowed us to achieve acceptable product quality without needing to engage experienced architects. The described process needs improvements and extensions to satisfy certification needs. However, for the prototyping or research phases, it may be a perfect solution for facilitating future product modifications and saving costs. The process improves product quality by underlying the value of transparency, performing specific actions and incorporating specific attributes related to team tasks. This research also focused on finding a metric related to process acceptance in a given environment, resulting in a three-degree scale showing whether the process needed improvements or was accepted by the environment. Such a metric is a new finding and the metric implies that there are some factors that stand behind any process, which determine whether it will be friendly to the environment (people with their habits, work style, personal traits, etc.) or not. However, investigating factors that determine the process acceptance and that are connected to the environment traits were beyond the scope of this research and will be considered in the future.
... Textual Use Cases. Use case modelling, recognized as a fundamental technique for the elicitation and specification of system requirements, employs textual descriptions to articulate scenarios or behaviours that satisfy user goals [8,13]. Use cases encompass a main success scenario delineating the path to achieving a goal, along with an extensions section detailing alternate scenarios. ...
... In extracting information from the OECD regulation to develop an ORM model, the method proposed by Cockburn [10], was used, as it allows following a structured and usercentered approach. This enables a deep understanding of the users' needs and the system's usage contexts, essential for identifying entities, roles, and relationships in the ORM model. ...
The article addresses the "Guidelines for the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data" by the OECD, proposing a model that incorporates its recommendations to assess and enhance compliance with data protection regulations. Using the Object-Role Modeling (ORM) methodology, the study aims to develop a detailed representation of the relationships and constraints between entities such as Data Controller and Personal Data, emphasizing the importance of transparency, accountability, and interoperability. It concludes by suggesting the transformation of the ORM model into first-order logic to enhance formal analysis and automate reasoning, highlighting the benefits in terms of clarity, accuracy, and identification of inconsistencies, with the aim of strengthening the privacy and security of personal data.
... For example, "enroll" derives the noun "enrolment", and "register" derives the noun "registration". As a result, a use case titled "Enroll in Seminar" by conventional approaches (e.g., [15]), leads to the use of the IOs Enrolment and Seminar, under the proposed grammar, as well as to the use of the relevant ucType use cases for each IO. For example, for the IO Actors are defined through the actors parser rule, as depicted below (Table 8). ...
... The use-case scenarios were utilized for the evaluation of the system, employing the k6 tool [30] and following standard international literature documented practices [31]. The developed methods encompass Smoke Testing, Load Testing, Stress Testing, and Soak Testing, as shown in Table 2. ...
To preserve handwritten historical documents, libraries are choosing to digitize them, ensuring their longevity and accessibility. However, the true value of these digitized images lies in their transcription into a textual format. In recent years, various tools have been developed utilizing both traditional and AI-based models to address the challenges of deciphering handwritten texts. Despite their importance, there are still several obstacles to overcome, such as the need for scalable and modular solutions, as well as the ability to cater to a continuously growing user community autonomously. This study focuses on introducing a new information fusion architecture, specifically highlighting the Gateway API. Developed as part of the µDoc.tS research program, this architecture aims to convert digital images of manuscripts into electronic text, ensuring secure and efficient routing of requests from front-end applications to the back end of the information system. The validation of this architecture demonstrates its efficiency in handling a large volume of requests and effectively distributing the workload. One significant advantage of this proposed method is its compatibility with everyday devices, eliminating the need for extensive computational infrastructures. It is believed that the scalability and modularity of this architecture can pave the way for a unified multi-platform solution, connecting diverse user environments and databases.
... 2.2.1 Textual Use Cases. Use case modelling, recognized as a fundamental technique for the elicitation and specification of system requirements, employs textual descriptions to articulate scenarios or behaviours that satisfy user goals [10,14]. Use cases encompass a main success scenario delineating the path to achieving a goal, along with an extensions section detailing alternate scenarios. ...
Requirements engineering (RE) plays an essential role in the success
of system and software development. Textual use case models are
valuable for capturing diverse scenarios describing the interactions
between the system and its actors, but their development, particularly
for the Internet of Things (IoT), can be tedious and error-prone
due to the added complexities and heterogeneous nature of such systems.
Automating requirements elicitation and specification tasks
with the use of generative AI is highly desirable. This paper explores
the potential of large language models (LLMs) for generating interaction
models for IoT systems from informal problem descriptions.
We investigate the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s
Gemini for generating standard and UCM4IoT textual use cases
by carrying out a comparative study using four IoT applications.
While both of these LLMs show promise as supporting tools, our
findings indicate a need for further refinement and domain-specific
training to enhance their precision and reliability in requirements
development for the IoT domain.
... This is one notation considered. OHB System also uses the Use Case Method [16], [17] on SRS level. Currently, the focus is put on the shall notation, while the derivation of test oracles from Use Cases is under consideration. ...
This paper presents an approach that uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to formalize requirements formulated in natural language text. It extracts information to assess the quality and complexity of requirements, to derive inputs for software verification and implementation, and to compare requirements automatically by means of metrics. The intended application fields are (critical) embedded systems. At DASIA'2022 [1] first ideas were presented on the ExANT study [2]. Now, the study is close to its end, and the ideas are concretized: The open source NLP (Natural Language Processing) framework spaCy [3] is used for tokenization, Part-of-Speech (PoS) tagging and dependency parsing based on a pre-trained English language model. For the following identification of text chunks a rule-based exploration approach was chosen in contrast to domain-specific training to ensure independence of a specific engineering domain. The text is then broken down into chunks which are put into a normalised order. If this is not possible, a quality issue may be detected. The normalised sequence of chunks can be used for building test oracles, for the implementation of software, and for applying metrics so that requirements may be compared for similarity or be evaluated.
... The developed diagrams are use case and class diagrams. The use case diagram for the LunchByte system has been specified to understand the possible sequential interaction among the system and its actors [28]. As shown in Figure 1 the main actors are the student, the legal guardian, and the school. ...
A significant number of elementary school students experience challenges related to lunch, including forgetting lunch money, lacking awareness of their individual dietary needs, and the importance of balanced nutritional choices for their overall health. Numerous parents and guardians struggle to monitor their children at school, control their purchasing behaviors, and maintain their health. Therefore, this research aims to enhance the efficiency and monitoring of elementary school students' lunch choices. LunchByte, a face recognition system developed in this study assists elementary in monitoring lunch expenses concerning their dietary restrictions. The main feature of LunchByte is using a student’s face print to generate a custom menu tailored to their allergies/diet restrictions and allowing them to pay with a prepaid balance added by their guardians. The evaluation of this system involves conducting model testing to assess the accuracy of facial recognition, integration testing to examine the interaction between different components of the system, and usability testing with end-users to evaluate the user experience. The results of these tests indicate that the system achieves high levels of accuracy and user satisfaction. The study is important because it has the potential to improve the overall health of young children.
... Use-case modelling is a structured method for describing system functionalities from the user's perspective. It involves detailing specific use cases, including their goals, actors, preconditions, flow of steps, alternative flows, and post-conditions [431][432][433]. ...
The overall objective of this work is to develop a comprehensive
and human-centred methodology for the analysis and design of digital
assistance systems. The research strategy is based on design science
research and employs a mixed-methods approach. Three distinct studies,
which contribute to the development of a robust methodology that
enhances the understanding and implementation of digital assistance
systems in assembly processes, validate the concept.
The marketing service must develop an effective way to achieve the strategic goals of the enterprise, must assess the potential of each structural unit of the enterprise, setting goals for them and subsequently successfully achieving them, ensure the enterprise's sales, maintaining demand at the level defined in the strategic plans. It should be understood that a crisis does not arise spontaneously - it is always accompanied by many indicators and factors. However, it is important to consider them and not miss them and start developing a backup plan of action, identifying the possibilities of a quick exit from the crisis. It is quite important to support the effective operation of key departments and employees. Under martial law conditions, there is a need to provide employees with safe working conditions, if the work is remote, then to establish communication with each team member to ensure that they are able to work. So, marketing activity is important in itself. During the crisis, many companies radically reduce their spending on marketing and any public appearances. This is quite natural - especially in the conditions of hostilities, economic crisis and employee relocations/evacuations. It is important that even in times of war, companies should invest in their marketing activities. The right balance between different types of communication in the future translates into loyal customers who will be ready to buy goods and services for many years to come. Guided by the current information, analysis and report, the marketing system should adjust its activities and adapt to the current economic situation.
Математические модели представления знаний активно применяются в изучении и применении искусственного интеллекта в различных сферах человеческой жизнедеятельности. Основой искусственного интеллекта выступают определенные, конкретные знания, которые являются базисом для последующей разработки специальных моделей представления знаний, а также и языков описания знаний. В наше время интеллектуальные системы все больше проникают во все области, связанные с человеческой трудовой деятельностью, поэтому трудно дать четкое определение всем существующим направлениям исследований в сфере искусственного интеллекта, которые получили новый импульс развития в наше время. Проектирование и процесс создания интеллектуальных систем, базирующихся на знаниях, наиболее востребованное и актуальное направление искусственного интеллекта. Наиболее важной конечной целью данных систем является исследование, а также последующее применение полученных знаний учеными и специалистами для разрешения трудоемких и необычных практических задач, с которыми сталкивается современное человечество в процессе жизнедеятельности. В первую очередь, в процессе создании интеллектуальной системы в качестве наиболее важных знаний применяются те знания, которые были получены и интерпретированы экспертами в качестве определенных законов и правил для решения разного рода задач.
We conducted a Project-Based Learning (PBL)-type exercise incorporating Japanese cartoon (manga) techniques into Requirements Development (RD) processes. Manga has established techniques, such as those for character setting and story development, that we thought are also valid for RD processes. Using this manga-driven method, students were able to clarify high-level project goals early in the development life-cycle, and succeeded in defining high quality and unique system ideas.
Ethnomethodological fieldwork has long been acknowledged as a potentially valuable way of informing the design of technology. However, there is relatively little methodological support for this activity, particularly in relation to the systematic approaches to development advocated in mainstream software and requirements engineering. This thesis focuses on the use of ethnomethodological fieldwork for the engineering of software requirements. Firstly, it proposes an approach, dubbed "Model Guided Fieldwork," to support a fieldworker in making observations that may contribute to a technological development process. It does this by supplementing the normal debriefing sessions that a fieldworker and a technologist might have, with a lightweight iterative system modelling exercise, in such a way that the fieldwork and modelling can be mutually guiding. Secondly, the thesis presents an application of this approach in a high-profile e-Science project. This case study provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between ethnomethodological ethnography and requirements engineering empirically. Thirdly, the thesis addresses a number of theoretical and philosophical concerns relating to its project. This consists in a number of clarifications and counterarguments which aim to better situate ethnomethodological fieldwork as a method of requirements elicitation. In these three regards the thesis constitutes a practical methodological and philosophical investigation into the topic at hand.
Margaria and colleagues have emphasized a paradigm for system construction and assurance in which development is organized around building and refining one comprehensive model of the system (referred to as the “One Thing Approach” (OTA)). In this paper, we connect to several key OTA ideas by presenting an integrated collection of development artifacts for a simple safety-critical system (an Infant Incubator example called the Isolette). Our illustration uses AADL for defining system models, the HAMR model-driven development tool, the GUMBO model-based component contract language for specifying constraints, and the Slang/Logika framework for code-level automated property-based testing and verificationl. The artifacts illustrate a rigorous process, moving end-to-end from the concepts of operations and requirements to assurance cases and deployment on the formally verified seL4 microkernel. We describe pedagogical resources and tutorials that have been used to introduce both students and industry teams to formal-methods integrated with model based development.
Requirements engineering is one of the key competencies of a business analyst. Practices in this area enable the development of a cohesive and comprehensive solution concept that meets specific business needs. Requirements engineering encompasses a whole set of practices and techniques—not just gathering information or analyzing requirements. It also involves specification, requirements management, and ensuring quality. All of these practices should be appropriately planned and executed to achieve the set goals at the right level of quality.
In this chapter, readers will learn the principles of requirements elicitation and understand the main sources of requirements—because there are many, not just stakeholders. They will also learn the principles of planning requirements elicitation activities. Additionally, the chapter will describe practices of requirements analysis and modeling, examples of requirements specifications indicating what information should be included in requirements documentation. Readers will understand what to pay attention to when documenting requirements and what forms requirements documentation can take. They will also become familiar with guidelines and checklists to design their approach to requirements specification.
Furthermore, the chapter will present basic practices in requirements management—with particular emphasis on tracing dependencies and managing change. Readers will learn various ways of defining and maintaining traceability, starting from determining artifacts whose development should be monitored through the traceability mechanism. Part of requirements management processes involves ensuring quality. Readers will learn how to control the quality of requirements and other analytical artifacts, what to focus on when creating and evaluating work products, and how to engage the team to achieve the best results possible.
The chapter will be complemented by examples and case studies illustrating the discussed topics.
The article substantiates the relevance of the research of crisis communication strategies, outlines possible ways of their organization, which will ensure stability and successful activity in an uncertain business environment. The peculiarities of communication during a crisis have been determined. Reasoned role and functions of internal communications. An example of a communication-oriented risk management plan is given. The characteristics of corporate messengers, which are used by a large number of companies of various sizes and, especially, during remote work, are given. It has been proven that a necessary aspect of successful management during a crisis is the presence of strong and affective leadership. It was emphasized that in order to improve the internal climate and communications in the team, it is advisable to appoint a specialist responsible for team spirit, who will distribute functions so that each team member realizes himself as a part of the whole, makes his important contribution, on which the final result of the project depends. Communications in crisis situations can both warn, mobilize help, reduce negative consequences, and spread panic, strengthen myths and misinformation, and divide society for years to come. It will depend on the correctness and clarity of establishing crisis communications, the choice of specific communication technologies and the communication strategy for exiting a specific crisis. For this, the authorities must develop a plan for managing crisis communications in conditions of uncertainty. Therefore, the crisis is a complex phenomenon that contains both potential and real threats and the danger of losses, as well as new opportunities for renewal and transformation in organizations, creating new modern approaches to interaction. Martial law can affect the quality of governance due to restrictions on freedom of action and decisions, extraordinary circumstances and instability of the political and economic situation
Despite recent efforts by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community to move towards standardised procedures for documenting models, methods, systems or datasets, there is currently no methodology focused on use cases aligned with the risk-based approach of the European AI Act (AI Act). In this paper, we propose a new framework for the documentation of use cases that we call use case cards, based on the use case modelling included in the Unified Markup Language (UML) standard. Unlike other documentation methodologies, we focus on the intended purpose and operational use of an AI system. It consists of two main parts: firstly, a UML-based template, tailored to allow implicitly assessing the risk level of the AI system and defining relevant requirements, and secondly, a supporting UML diagram designed to provide information about the system-user interactions and relationships. The proposed framework is the result of a co-design process involving a relevant team of EU policy experts and scientists. We have validated our proposal with 11 experts with different backgrounds and a reasonable knowledge of the AI Act as a prerequisite. We provide the 5 use case cards used in the co-design and validation process. Use case cards allows framing and contextualising use cases in an effective way, and we hope this methodology can be a useful tool for policy makers and providers for documenting use cases, assessing the risk level, adapting the different requirements and building a catalogue of existing usages of AI.
To correctly formalise requirements expressed in natural language, ambiguities must first be identified and then fixed. This paper focuses on behavioural requirements (i.e. requirements related to dynamic aspects and phenomena). Its first objective is to show, based on a practical, public case study, that the disambiguation process cannot be fully automated: even though natural language processing (NLP) tools and machine learning might help in the identification of ambiguities, fixing them often requires a deep, application-specific understanding of the reasons of being of the system of interest, of the characteristics of its environment, of which trade-offs between conflicting objectives are acceptable, and of what is achievable and what is not; it may also require arduous negotiations between stakeholders. Such an understanding and consensus-making ability is not in the reach of current tools and technologies, and will likely remain so for a long while. Beyond ambiguity, requirements are often marred by various other types of defects that could lead to wholly unacceptable consequences. In particular, operational experience shows that requirements inadequacy (whereby, in some of the situations the system could face, what is required is woefully inappropriate or what is necessary is left unspecified) is a significant cause for systems failing to meet expectations. The second objective of this paper is to propose a semantically accurate behavioural requirements formalisation format enabling tool-supported requirements verification, notably with simulation. Such support is necessary for the engineering of large and complex cyber-physical and socio-technical systems to ensure, first, that the specified requirements indeed reflect the true intentions of their authors and second, that they are adequate for all the situations the system could face. To that end, the paper presents an overview of the BASAALT (Behaviour Analysis and Simulation All Along systems Life Time) systems engineering method, and of FORM-L (FOrmal Requirements Modelling Language), its supporting language, which aims at representing as accurately and completely as possible the semantics expressed in the original, natural language behavioural requirements, and is markedly different from languages intended for software code generation. The paper shows that generally, semantically accurate formalisation is not a simple paraphrasing of the original natural language requirements: additional elements are often needed to fully and explicitly reflect all that is implied in natural language. To provide such complements for the case study presented in the paper, we had to follow different formalisation patterns, i.e. sequences of formalisation steps. For this paper, to avoid being skewed by what a particular automatic tool can and cannot do, BASAALT and FORM-L were applied manually. Still, the lessons learned could be used to specify and develop NLP tools that could assist the disambiguation and formalisation processes. However, more studies are needed to determine whether an exhaustive set of formalisation patterns can be identified to fully automate the formalisation process.
Os Casos de Uso (diagrama de caso de uso e descrição textual do caso de uso) são amplamente reconhecidos e usados como um meio de capturar requisitos de sistemas. No entanto, engenheiros de software e estudantes têm lacunas de aprendizado na compreensão da sintaxe e semântica desses modelos. Essas lacunas podem afetar a qualidade final do software, uma vez que esses modelos representariam o software de forma incompleta e incorreta. Logo, faz-se necessário orientar os estudantes enquanto estão aprendendo os diagramas. Para ensinar a modelagem de software de maneira eficaz nos cursos de Computação, os professores podem utilizar estratégias pedagógicas alternativas, como Learning from Erroneous Examples (ErrEx). Este artigo apresenta um relato de experiência que mostra a percepção dos estudantes sobre o uso do ErrEx como apoio na aprendizagem de modelagem de software. Os resultados mostram que o ErrEx ajuda a entender alguns conceitos, na identificação de defeitos e a evitar repeti-los no futuro.
Requirement specifications play an essential role in software development processes. They can take different forms, including a use-case model. The use-case model defines the use-cases and the relationships among them and contains definitions of the use-case specifications. It is used to estimate software development project efforts and for planning iterations. The use-case model is subject to change as requirements evolve or the model is refactored. Therefore, it is essential that the use-case model is not redundant and its parts are reusable. Existing approaches for the use-case model specification support reusability in a limited way. This paper fills the gap. It introduces a new Use-Case Flow Language to specify the entire use-case model conveniently yet semi-formally. The language is defined at the abstract syntax level by a metamodel with an informal description of the semantics of the metamodel elements. A discussion and justification of metamodel elements is given. A concrete textual syntax of the language is also provided and informally described. An example of a use-case model specified in the proposed notation is presented in the paper.
Buku ini dirancang untuk memberikan pandangan yang komprehensif dan mendalam tentang teknik dokumentasi dalam proses pengembangan perangkat lunak. Dengan fokus pada prinsip, praktik, dan standar industri, buku ini menawarkan panduan yang berharga bagi siapa saja yang terlibat dalam pengembangan perangkat lunak, baik sebagai praktisi maupun sebagai akademisi.
Scenarios are ideal to capture knowledge in human computer interface software engineering. Requirements engineering is a fundamental part of software development. If errors appear in this stage, it will be expensive to correct them in further stages. The domain experts and the developer team belong to different worlds. This generates a gap in communication between them. Because of it, it is important to use artifacts in natural language to communicate both sides. One simpler approach to specify requirements is Scenarios. They are widely used artifacts that generally describe the dynamics (tasks, activities) to be carried out in some specific situation. Generally, scenarios promote communication and participation from both sides. This can cause some problems. One of these problems is redundancy, that occurs when two stakeholders describe the same situation in different artifacts. This paper proposes an approach to analyze a set of scenarios by grouping them according to their similarity. The similarity is calculated through a series of comparisons of the different attributes of the scenario. This paper also describes a prototype implementing this method. Finally, the paper shows the result of a preliminary evaluation with results about the applicability of the approach.
While the software industry is a fast-paced and exciting world in which new tools, technologies, and techniques are constantly being developed to serve business and society, it is also forgetful. In its haste for fast-forward motion, it is subject to the whims of fashion and can forget or ignore proven solutions to some of the eternal problems that it faces. Use cases, first introduced in 1986 and popularized later, are one of those proven solutions. Ivar Jacobson and Alistair Cockburn, the two primary actors in this domain, are writing this article to describe to a new generation what use cases are and how they serve.
This chapter focuses on how to bring knowledge to life in business processes. It provides an example of metaphor as a product of theorizing—see Table 2.1 in Chap. 2. The chapter applies the metaphor of the atmosphere to describe a different type of business process. The traditional business process is a series of tasks performed in a sequence that has a beginning and an ending. The aesthetic business process is made up of experiences—much like how one experiences the atmosphere—as a result of the elements and conditions present in the business process. Where the traditional business process improves outcomes by linking services or tasks in parallel (e.g., horizontally across different functional departments), focusing on the aesthetic business process improves the overall outcome in different ways, by constructing various “atmospheres,” in particular working on the “thinking” atmosphere (engendering independent thinking in constructing business processes) and the “sensing” atmosphere (feeling what works in a business process). The concept of aesthetic business processes aims to stimulate aesthetic satisfaction in digitalized business processes so that new thinking necessary for business process design becomes possible.
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