Authors: Glenn J. Browne, S. Balaji, V. Ramesh, Vijay Khatri
Tags: 2005
User requirements representation is one of the important
aspects of systems analysis. Typically, informal (flowcharts) and semi-formal (ERD and DFD) diagrams are
employed to verify requirements with the users. However,
no prior empirical research has addressed the effect of
formality of diagrams on the users’ ability to verify the
requirements. We theorize the distinctions between
informal and semi-formal diagrams based on prior
empirical studies and the theory of cognitive fit. Problem
representation models suggest informal models to be closer
to the application domain and require lower IS domain
knowledge, whereas semi-formal models are closer to the
software domain and require higher IS domain knowledge.
For the requirements verification task, we hypothesize that
naïve users will perform better with informal diagrams than
with semi-formal diagrams. To evaluate the effect of
representation formality on requirements verification task, a
lab study was conducted. We present an approach for
analyzing the requirements-related data and discuss the
implications of this research.
Cite as:
Browne G.J., Ramesh V., Balaji S., Khatri V. (2005). “User Requirements Verification: Evaluating the Effect of Formality in Presentation Modeling Representations,” in AIS SIGSAND 2005, Cincinnati, OHIO, United States, April 23-24, 2005.
