Unit 2

Requirements Engineering
Contents
 Functional and non-functional requirements
 User requirements
 System requirements
 The software requirements document
Requirements engineering
 The process of establishing the services that the customer requires
from a system and the constraints under which it operates and is
developed.

 The requirements themselves are the descriptions of the system

services and constraints that are generated during the requirements
engineering process.
What is a requirement?
 It may range from a high-level abstract statement of a service or of a
system constraint to a detailed mathematical functional
specification.

 This is inevitable as requirements may serve a dual function

 May be the basis for a bid for a contract - therefore must be open
to interpretation;
 May be the basis for the contract itself - therefore must be defined
in detail;
 Both these statements may be called requirements.
Requirements abstraction (Davis)
“If a company wishes to let a contract for a large software development
project, it must define its needs in a sufficiently abstract way that a
solution is not pre-defined. The requirements must be written so that
several contractors can bid for the contract, offering, perhaps, different
ways of meeting the client organisation’s needs. Once a contract has
been awarded, the contractor must write a system definition for the
client in more detail so that the client understands and can validate what
the software will do. Both of these documents may be called the
requirements document for the system.”
Types of requirement
 User requirements
 Statements in natural language plus diagrams of the services the
system provides and its operational constraints. Written for
customers.

 System requirements
 A structured document setting out detailed descriptions of the
system’s functions, services and operational constraints. Defines
what should be implemented so may be part of a contract
between client and contractor.
Definitions and specifications
User requir ement definition

1. The software m ust provide a means of representing and

1. accessing external files created by other tools.

System requir ements specification

1.1 The user should be pr ovided with facilities to define the type of
1.2 external files.
1.2 Each external file type ma y have an associated tool w hich ma y be
1.2 applied to the file .
1.3 Each external file type ma y be r epr esented as a specific icon on
1.2 the user’s display.
1.4 Facilities should be pr ovided for the icon r epresenting an
1.2 external file type to be defined b y the user.
1.5 When a user selects an icon r epr esenting an e xternal file, the
1.2 effect of that selection is to apply the tool associated with the type of
1.2 the external file to the file represented by the selected icon.
Requirements readers
Functional and non-functional
requirements
 Functional requirements
 Statements of services the system should provide, how the
system should react to particular inputs and how the system
should behave in particular situations.
 Non-functional requirements
 constraints on the services or functions offered by the system
such as timing constraints, constraints on the development
process, standards, etc.
 Domain requirements
 Requirements that come from the application domain of the
system and that reflect characteristics of that domain.
Functional requirements
 Describe functionality or system services.
 Depend on the type of software, expected users and the type of
system where the software is used.
 Functional user requirements may be high-level statements of what
the system should do but functional system requirements should
describe the system services in detail.
The LIBSYS system
 A library system that provides a single interface to a number of
databases of articles in different libraries.
 Users can search for, download and print these articles for personal
study.
Examples of functional
requirements
 The user shall be able to search either all of the initial set of
databases or select a subset from it.
 The system shall provide appropriate viewers for the user to read
documents in the document store.
 Every order shall be allocated a unique identifier (ORDER_ID) which
the user shall be able to copy to the account’s permanent storage
area.
Requirements imprecision
 Problems arise when requirements are not precisely stated.
 Ambiguous requirements may be interpreted in different ways by
developers and users.
 Consider the term ‘appropriate viewers’
 User intention - special purpose viewer for each different
document type;
 Developer interpretation - Provide a text viewer that shows the
contents of the document.
Requirements completeness and
consistency
 In principle, requirements should be both complete and consistent.
 Complete
 They should include descriptions of all facilities required.
 Consistent
 There should be no conflicts or contradictions in the descriptions
of the system facilities.
 In practice, it is impossible to produce a complete and consistent
requirements document.
Non-functional requirements
 These define system properties and constraints e.g. reliability,
response time and storage requirements. Constraints are I/O device
capability, system representations, etc.
 Process requirements may also be specified mandating a particular
CASE system, programming language or development method.
 Non-functional requirements may be more critical than functional
requirements. If these are not met, the system is useless.
Non-functional classifications
 Product requirements
 Requirements which specify that the delivered product must
behave in a particular way e.g. execution speed, reliability, etc.

 Organisational requirements
 Requirements which are a consequence of organisational
policies and procedures e.g. process standards used,
implementation requirements, etc.

 External requirements
 Requirements which arise from factors which are external to the
system and its development process e.g. interoperability
requirements, legislative requirements, etc.
Non-functional requirement types
Non-functional requirements examples
 Product requirement
The user interface for LIBSYS shall be implemented as simple HTML
without frames or Java applets.
 Organisational requirement
 External requirement
The system shall not disclose any personal information about
customers apart from their name and reference number to the
operators of the system.
Goals and requirements
 Non-functional requirements may be very difficult to state precisely
and imprecise requirements may be difficult to verify.
 Goal
 A general intention of the user such as ease of use.
 Verifiable non-functional requirement
 A statement using some measure that can be objectively tested.
 Goals are helpful to developers as they convey the intentions of the
system users.
Examples
 A system goal
 The system should be easy to use by experienced controllers and
should be organised in such a way that user errors are minimised.

 A verifiable non-functional requirement

 Experienced controllers shall be able to use all the system
functions after a total of two hours training. After this training, the
average number of errors made by experienced users shall not
exceed two per day.
Requirements measures
Requirements interaction
 Conflicts between different non-functional requirements are
common in complex systems.

 Spacecraft system
 To minimise weight, the number of separate chips in the system
should be minimised.
 To minimise power consumption, lower power chips should be
used.
 However, using low power chips may mean that more chips have
to be used. Which is the most critical requirement?
Domain requirements
 Derived from the application domain and describe system
characteristics and features that reflect the domain.
 Domain requirements be new functional requirements, constraints
on existing requirements or define specific computations.
 If domain requirements are not satisfied, the system may be
unworkable.
Library system domain
requirements
 There shall be a standard user interface to all databases.
 Because of copyright restrictions, some documents must be deleted
immediately on arrival. Depending on the user’s requirements, these
documents will either be printed locally on the system server for
manually forwarding to the user or routed to a network printer.
Domain requirements problems
 Understandability
 Requirements are expressed in the language of the application
domain;
 This is often not understood by software engineers developing
the system.

 Implicitness
 Domain specialists understand the area so well that they do not
think of making the domain requirements explicit.
User requirements
 Should describe functional and non-functional requirements in such
a way that they are understandable by system users who don’t have
detailed technical knowledge.

 User requirements are defined using natural language, tables and

diagrams as these can be understood by all users.
Problems with natural language
 Lack of clarity
 Precision is difficult without making the document difficult to read.

 Requirements confusion
 Functional and non-functional requirements tend to be mixed-up.

 Requirements amalgamation
 Several different requirements may be expressed together.
LIBSYS requirement
LIBSYS shall provide a financial accounting system that maintains
records of all payments made by users of the system. System
managers may configure this system so that regular users may
receive discounted rates.
Requirement problems
 Database requirements includes both conceptual and detailed
information
 Describes the concept of a financial accounting system that is to
be included in LIBSYS;
 However, it also includes the detail that managers can configure
this system - this is unnecessary at this level.

 Grid requirement mixes three different kinds of requirement

 Conceptual functional requirement
 Non-functional requirement
 Non-functional UI requirement
Guidelines for writing requirements
 Invent a standard format and use it for all requirements.
 Use language in a consistent way. Use shall for mandatory
requirements, should for desirable requirements.
 Use text highlighting to identify key parts of the requirement.
 Avoid the use of computer jargon.
System requirements
 More detailed specifications of system functions, services and
constraints than user requirements.
 They are intended to be a basis for designing the system.
 They may be incorporated into the system contract.
Requirements and design
 In principle, requirements should state what the system should do
and the design should describe how it does this.

 In practice, requirements and design are inseparable

 A system architecture may be designed to structure the
requirements;
 The system may inter-operate with other systems that generate
design requirements;
 The use of a specific design may be a domain requirement.
The requirements document
 The requirements document is the official statement of what is
required of the system developers.
 Should include both a definition of user requirements and a
specification of the system requirements.
 It is NOT a design document. As far as possible, it should set of
WHAT the system should do rather than HOW it should do it
Users of a requirements document
IEEE requirements standard
 Defines a generic structure for a requirements document that must
be instantiated for each specific system.
 Introduction.
 General description.
 Specific requirements.
 Appendices.
 Index.
Requirements document structure
 Preface
 Introduction
 Glossary
 User requirements definition
 System architecture
 System requirements specification
 System models
 System evolution
 Appendices
 Index
Requirements engineering
processes
 The processes used for RE vary widely depending on the application
domain, the people involved and the organisation developing the
requirements.
 However, there are a number of generic activities common to all
processes
 Requirements elicitation; inception, elaboration, elicitation
 Requirements analysis;
 Requirements validation;
 Requirements management.
The requirements engineering
process
Requirements engineering
Feasibility studies
 A feasibility study decides whether or not the proposed
system is worthwhile.
 A short focused study that checks
 If the system contributes to organisational objectives;
 If the system can be engineered using current technology
and within budget;
 If the system can be integrated with other systems that are
used.
Feasibility study implementation
 Based on information assessment (what is required), information
collection and report writing.
 Questions for people in the organisation
 What if the system wasn’t implemented?
 What are current process problems?
 How will the proposed system help?
 What will be the integration problems?
 Is new technology needed? What skills?
 What facilities must be supported by the proposed system?