Ebook: User-Centred Requirements Engineering

If you have picked up this book and are browsing the Preface, you may well be asking yourself"What makes this book different from the large number I can find on amazon. com?". Well, the answer is a blend of the academic and the practical, and views of the subject you won't get from anybody else: how psychology and linguistics influence the field of requirements engineering (RE). The title might seem to be a bit of a conundrum; after all, surely requirements come from people so all requirements should be user-centred. Sadly, that is not always so; many system disasters have been caused simply because requirements engineering was not user-centred or, worse still, was not practised at all. So this book is about putting the people back into com­ puting, although not simply from the HCI (human-computer interaction) sense; instead, the focus is on how to understand what people want and then build appropriate computer systems.

---

User-Centred Requirements Engineering: Theory and Practice reviews requirements engineering research and practice over the past 10 years. In this book, Alistair Sutcliffe introduces the field of Requirements Engineering, and describes a framework for RE research and practice to date. He explains the psychological background behind RE problems - providing some understanding about why RE is difficult and how human understanding can cause the problems we observe in getting requirements right. The book discusses communication and requirements analysis, and gives practical guidance for requirements elicitation, modelling and validation, along with details of a practical RE method for scenario-based requirements analysis and requirements for safety critical systems. Whilst primarily a research text for graduate courses, this book is also intended as a useful reference for practitioners who want an in-depth treatment of the subject to date.

---

User-Centred Requirements Engineering: Theory and Practice reviews requirements engineering research and practice over the past 10 years. In this book, Alistair Sutcliffe introduces the field of Requirements Engineering, and describes a framework for RE research and practice to date. He explains the psychological background behind RE problems - providing some understanding about why RE is difficult and how human understanding can cause the problems we observe in getting requirements right. The book discusses communication and requirements analysis, and gives practical guidance for requirements elicitation, modelling and validation, along with details of a practical RE method for scenario-based requirements analysis and requirements for safety critical systems. Whilst primarily a research text for graduate courses, this book is also intended as a useful reference for practitioners who want an in-depth treatment of the subject to date.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xii
Introduction....Pages 1-18
Understanding People....Pages 19-43
RE Tasks and Processes....Pages 45-77
Understanding Requirements Conversations....Pages 79-102
Representing the Problem....Pages 103-125
Scenario-Based Requirements Engineering (SCRAM)....Pages 127-147
Requirements Analysis for Safety Critical Systems....Pages 149-180
Future Directions....Pages 181-200
Back Matter....Pages 201-215

---

User-Centred Requirements Engineering: Theory and Practice reviews requirements engineering research and practice over the past 10 years. In this book, Alistair Sutcliffe introduces the field of Requirements Engineering, and describes a framework for RE research and practice to date. He explains the psychological background behind RE problems - providing some understanding about why RE is difficult and how human understanding can cause the problems we observe in getting requirements right. The book discusses communication and requirements analysis, and gives practical guidance for requirements elicitation, modelling and validation, along with details of a practical RE method for scenario-based requirements analysis and requirements for safety critical systems. Whilst primarily a research text for graduate courses, this book is also intended as a useful reference for practitioners who want an in-depth treatment of the subject to date.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xii
Introduction....Pages 1-18
Understanding People....Pages 19-43
RE Tasks and Processes....Pages 45-77
Understanding Requirements Conversations....Pages 79-102
Representing the Problem....Pages 103-125
Scenario-Based Requirements Engineering (SCRAM)....Pages 127-147
Requirements Analysis for Safety Critical Systems....Pages 149-180
Future Directions....Pages 181-200
Back Matter....Pages 201-215
....