Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
REV'08: Third International Workshop on Requirements Engineering VisualizationMonday 8th September
Barcelona, Spain
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Clotilde [email protected]
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
[email protected] Page 1
The problem:
Current visualization techniques lack convenience and do notprovide sufficient clarity about impact of non-functionalrequirements on variants.
The importance:
Many developers must address NFRs.
e.g. Teamcenter software non-functional requirements arerepresented as Items and are the criteria for setting views of theProduct Structure (performance view and the security view).
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
The problem:
The NFRs are
dispatched
everywhere
in the figure
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
[email protected] Page 1
Who is the visualization for?
Every stakeholders that has to deal with non-functionalrequirements and their impact on variants:
• From the vendor side: technical sales support, benchmarker,developers, prototypers, project leaders, implementators etc.
• From the customer side: managers, project leaders, users,etc.
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
What is the visualization for?
The visualization should support the work of stakeholders in eachbusiness and product lifecycle management steps when one has todeal with non-functional requirements and their impact on variants:
• Benchmark (incl. Prototype)
• Process Accessment
• Specification
• Implementation
• Testing and Validation
• Change Management Process
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
We propose a visualization that expects to helpto see at first glance:
- the Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs)
- the Functional Requirements
- the Impact of NFRs on variants
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
[email protected] Page 1
Variants Panel
Quality Requirements Panel
Impact of NFRson Variants PanelFunctional Requirements
Non-Functional Requirements
1
2
3
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Functional Requirements
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Gi
a
Sij
b
1
Gj
Map model [Rolland 2000, Rolland et al. 2007]
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Variants PanelFunctional Requirements
Gi
a
Sij
b
1
Gj
Variants arebased on mapmodel.
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Gi
a
Sij
b
1
Gj
MAP graphicalrepresentation of a section
Atomic Variant
Why variant representation based on MAP model?
The visualization supports all variant types:optional variants, alternatives, mandatory, iterative.
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Map sections linked by a bundlerelationship
Simple Variant withAlternate Choice
Map sections linked by a multi-thread relationship
Simple Variant with MultipleChoice
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Map sections linked by a pathrelationship
Path Composite Variant
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Sij1Sjk
a b11
2
3
Sij2
Sij3
Gi Gj
Gk
c
Sik
1
Map sections linked by amulti-path relationship Multi-Path Composite Variant
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
NFR Visualization
Using the representation of [Chung et al., 1996]
Decomposition of NFR goal Performance/Time into one or two sub-goals
Non-Functional Requirements
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Quality Requirements Panel
Quality Requirements Panel
Non-Functional Requirements
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Impact of NFRs on Variants Panel
Correlation links, adopted from [Chung et al., 2000]
--
- ? + ++
BREAK HURT UNKNOWN HELP MAKE
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Impact of NFRs on Variants Panel
Layer 1: Impact of NFRs on atomic variants
Layer 2: Impact of NFRs on
simple and composite variants
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
• NFRs Impact on atomic variants
<NFR Impact value on atomic variant>
Variant Vi
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Maprel.
Representation of thecorresponding variant
Visualization of NFRImpact on variant
None
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Multi-Threadrelation-ship
Bundlerelation-ship
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Maprelationship
Representation of thecorresponding variant
Visualization of NFR Impacton variant
Pathrelationship
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Maprelationship
Representation of thecorresponding variant
Visualization of NFR Impacton variant
Multi-pathrelationship
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Summary Graphical Representation on NFR Impact on Simple & Composite Variants
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
NFR’s testing and ISO compliance
No NFR Test Scenario Example ISOCompliance
1 SuitabilityThe capability of the
test object toprovide anappropriate set offunctions forspecified tasks
and user objects.
Execution ofinstructions andfunction blocks,transfer of data, timeresponse.
Transfer ofbytespersecond
Yes
Example
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Scalability of the representation:
The scalability is enabled by• 1) the decomposition method of the map for the functional
requirements and• 2) the typology of NFR according to the Chung NFR types or
ISO9126.
As requirements become more complex, one can keep therepresentation uncluttered by showing a map of the highest level.The user may view details by traversing the hierarchy of maps.
Also, rather than viewing a total representation, the user can viewNFRs according to their NFR types. For example, one could viewfirst the NFR decomposed goals of performance and then the NFRdecomposed goals of user-friendliness or security.
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
The case studyThe visualization has been used in practice for validating the work
This study addressed software for reporting Product LifecycleManagement (http://www.siemens.com/plm )
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Map of data reporting tool for Product Lifecycle Management
Functional Requirements
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Where used information
Where referenced informationBOM informationWorkflow information
Master informationetc.
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Variants Panel
Quality Requirements Panel
Impact of NFRson Variants Panel
Functional Requirements
Non-Functional Requirements
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
• Evaluation
All variabilityrepresentationtypes
Type ofexpressedvariability
Variant type according our approach
A l t e r n a t i v ebundles
Simple Variant with multiple choiceMulti-path Composite Variant
Alternatives Simple Variant with Alternate Choice
Options Optional Variant like Simple Variant withmultiple Choice or Path Composite Variant orMulti-path Composite Variant or atomicVariant which belongs to a Path CompositeVariant
O p t i o n a lAlternatives
Optional Variant like Simple Variant withAlternate Choice belonging to a PathComposite Variant
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Evaluation- Dependencies- NFRs representation- Clarity
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
The results
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
This visualization approach clarifies use of variantcombinations based on non-functional requirements.One can navigate through the variants and getinformation about the quality attributes according tothe approach.
Applying our approach, we obtained preliminarydesign views for the reporting tool that wereimplemented in the resulting reporting system.Leaders who participated in this case studyresponded positively.
Centre de Rechercheen Informatique
REV’08 / Session 3
Thanks for your attention!
Visualizing the Impact ofNon-Functional Requirements
on Variants – A Case Study
Questions?