Task descriptions versus use cases

Søren Lauesen, Mohammad Amin Kuhail

    Research output: Journal Article or Conference Article in JournalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    Use cases are widely used as a substantial part
    of requirements, also when little programming is expected
    (COTS-based systems, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf). Are
    use cases effective as requirements? To answer this question,
    we invited professionals and researchers to specify
    requirements for the same project: Acquire a new system to
    support a hotline. Among the 15 replies, eight used traditional
    use cases that specified a dialog between user and
    system. Seven used a related technique, task description,
    which specified the customer’s needs without specifying a
    dialog. It also allowed the analyst to specify problem
    requirements—problems to be handled by the new system.
    It turned out that the traditional use cases covered the
    customer’s needs poorly in areas where improvement was
    important but difficult. Use cases also restricted the solution
    space severely. Tasks did not have these problems and
    allowed an easy comparison of solutions.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalRequirements Engineering (electronic edition)
    Issue numberDOI 10.1007/s00766-011-0140-1
    Number of pages16
    ISSN1432-010X
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2011

    Keywords

    • Use case
    • Task description
    • Software requirements
    • Agile requirements
    • Verification
    • COTS
    • Interaction design
    • Diffusion of innovation

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