Paper Info
Title
Requirements fixation
Abstract
There is a broad consensus that understanding system desiderata (requirements) and design creativity are both important for software engineering success. However, little research has addressed the relationship between design creativity and the way requirements are framed or presented. This paper therefore aims to investigate the possibility that the way desiderata are framed or presented can affect design creativity. Forty two participants took part in a randomized control trial where one group received desiderata framed as “requirements” while the other received desiderata framed as “ideas”. Participants produced design concepts which were judged for originality. Participants who received requirements framing produced significantly less original designs than participants who received ideas framing (Mann-Whitney U=116.5, p=0.004). We conclude that framing desiderata as “requirements” may cause requirements fixation where designers’ preoccupation with satisfying explicit requirements inhibits their creativity.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1145/2568225.2568235
ICSE
Keywords
DocType
Citations 
design,experimentation,human factors,documentation,randomized controlled trial,design creativity,requirements,cognitive bias
Conference
6
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.49
35
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Rahul Mohanani1172.77
Paul Ralph210216.19
Ben Shreeve361.16