Requirements Elicitation in the Design of Technologies for Collaborative Interaction

Summary

Requirements elicitation is about exploring the problem space and defining what technology for collaborative interaction will be developed.

Requirements range from functional to contextual such as e.g. social, environment and user goals. Methods for gathering and analyzing data to elicit requirements in the design of technologies for collaborative interaction will be presented.

Learning Outcomes

On completing this module the students should be able to:

• name methods for requirements elicitation and qualitative data analysis in the design of technology for collaborative interaction.
• formulate requirements in design of technology for collaborative interaction.
• apply requirement elicitation in design of technologies for collaborative interaction.
• evaluate requirements in the design of technologies for collaborative interaction.

Teacher Guidance

This teaching activity consists of two main components, a lecture and an accompanying exercise. The expected length of the lecture is 30-45 minutes. The exercise can be given varying amount of time, but a couple of hours is recommended giving a total duration of about 3 hours.

1. In the lecture (40 minutes), the teacher introduces students to relevant factors for eliciting requirements from qualitative data when designing technologies for collaborative interaction. 
2. For the exercise (60), the students in small groups practice analysis of qualitative data and/or requirements elicitation.
3. The teacher checks what the students are doing (3 minutes / group) and advises on aspects to consider. 
4. The students share their practice outputs with peers (20 minutes), and gain access to peers’ outputs as a model for their practice. 
5. The teacher chairs a class discussion (30 minutes), asking for reflections on experiences, and consolidating the lessons learned.

It is recommended that students read the recommended literature before the teaching.

Recommended Readings

• Braun V. & Clarke V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3:2, 77-101
• Schmidt K. & Rodden T. 1996. Chapter 11: Putting it all together: Requirements for a CSCW platform. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0923-8433(96)80013-x
• Didar Zowghi and Chad Coulin. 2005. Requirements elicitation: A survey of techniques, approaches, and tools. In Engineering and managing software requirements. Springer, 19-46. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/3-540-28244-0.pdf