Paper Info
Title
Enriching Requirements Analysis with the Personas Technique
Abstract
Two separate processes for building usable systems —one from SE to develop the system and another from HCI to improve usability— are not easily manageable. Software development and usability design cannot be controlled and synchronized separately. Additionally, the likely overlap of activities across the two processes would reduce efficiency and increase costs. Milewski (15) claims that there are still problems with SE-HCI interactions that require more research. One of the major remaining obstacles to cooperation between HCI and SE is that there is little knowledge and communication about the practices and techniques of HCI in SE and vice versa. A thorough understanding of the users that interact with the system is necessary to develop usable systems. The Personas technique developed by the human-computer interaction (HCI) discipline gathers data about users, gains an understanding of their characteristics, defines fictitious personas based on this understanding and focuses on these personas throughout the software development process. The aim of our research is to build Personas into systems development following software engineering (SE) guidelines. The benefits to be gained are an understanding of the user which is not traditionally taken into account in SE. To do this, we had to undertake two types of tasks. First, we modified the Personas technique to conform to the levels of systematization common in SE. We have called the modified technique PersonaSE. Second, we incorporated the proposed technique into the software requirements analysis process. In this research, we propose modifying the HCI technique to assure that it is completely incorporated and assimilated in the SE development process. This step will benefit both disciplines, as it will promote an understanding between the SE and HCI activities and techniques. We have chosen the Personas technique (8) used in the HCI user analysis activity. This technique is useful for gathering, analysing and synthesizing the information related to the users interacting with the software system. Personas helps to focus software analysis and design on the features and goals of the product's end user (7). Personas are detailed descriptions of fictitious users, stressing their characteristics and goals based on surveys of real end users. The quantitative and qualitative data that are gathered, analysed and synthesized about the users are used as background for designing the personas (10).
Year
Venue
Keywords
2008
I-USED
usability,personas technique,requirements analysis,human-computer interaction,software process.,software systems,software analysis,software engineering,software requirements,software development process,software development,software process,requirement analysis,qualitative data,human computer interaction
Field
DocType
Citations 
Personal software process,Software engineering,Software peer review,Computer science,Usability,Requirements analysis,Software construction,Software requirements specification,Software development,Software requirements
Conference
4
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.54
8
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
John W. Castro13510.47
Silvia Teresita Acuña27427.26
Natalia Juristo31613149.23