Visualising personas as goal models to find security tensions

Purpose This paper aims to present a tool-supported approach for visualising personas as social goal models, which can subsequently be used to identify security tensions. Design/methodology/approach The authors devised an approach to partially automate the construction of social goal models from personas. The authors provide two examples of how this approach can identify previously hidden implicit vulnerabilities and validate ethical hazards faced by penetration testers and their safeguards. Findings Visualising personas as goal models makes it easier for stakeholders to see implications of their goals being satisfied or denied and designers to incorporate the creation and analysis of such models into the broader requirements engineering (RE) tool-chain. Originality/value The approach can be used with minimal changes to existing user experience and goal modelling approaches and security RE tools.

Survey Evaluation of an Approach for Dynamic Software Product Lines

In Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPLs) product configuration occurs at runtime. Modelling variability and configuring the product in DSPLs should consider the context and non-functional requirements (NFRs) satisfaction. ConG4DaS (Contextual Goal models For Dynamic Software product lines) is a Requirements Engineering (RE) approach for DSPL which supports (i) modelling of variability with goals, NFRs, contexts and the relationship be-tween them; and (ii) offers a product configuration based on contexts, NFRs and their priority and interactions. In this paper, we present a survey evaluation of ConG4DaS with RE and DSPL researchers in regard to the perceived usefulness. In the survey, both RE and DSPL researchers perceived ConG4DaS as useful for modelling and configuring DSPLs. However, the RE group gave more positive answers than the DSPL group.

Visualization of the Values of Requirements Attributes with Goal Models

Attributes such as cost, risk, priority, and customer satisfaction are integral components of requirements specifications, helping with decision-making during the software development process. Moreover, requirements status and stability are relevant meta-information for requirements management. Even though goal modelling is a visual approach for requirements engineering that enables expressing and reasoning about goals, qualities, tasks and resources, existing approaches do not include the aforementioned attributes as part of the visualization of the models. This paper presents a set of strategies for visually representing requirements attributes over goal models, aiming at minimizing the cognitive effort required in their analysis. The proposal is supported by a tool that implements the visualization strategies here defined. Empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposal, however, is expected to be carried out as future work.

Agent-Oriented Goal Models in Developing Information Systems Supporting Physical Activity Among Adolescents: Literature Review and Expert Interviews

Background Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are becoming increasingly popular in supporting the fight against low physical activity (PA) levels among adolescents. However, several ICT solutions lack evidence-based content. Therefore, there is a need to identify important features that have the potential to efficiently and consistently support the PA of adolescents using ICT solutions. Objective This study aims to create evidence-based models of requirements for ICT solutions supporting PA by combining scientific evidence from literature and health experts. In addition, we test the suitability of agent-oriented goal models in this type of modeling process. Methods A literature search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases was conducted to identify evidence-based functional, quality, and emotional goals that have previously been proven to be relevant in supporting PAs among youth using ICT solutions. The identified goals were presented in the form of goal models. These models were used to collaborate with health experts to receive their input on the topic and suggestions for improvement. The initial goal models were improved based on the feedback from the experts. Results The results indicated that agent-oriented goal modeling is a suitable method for merging information from the literature and experts. One strength of agent-oriented goal models is that they present emotional requirements together with quality and functional requirements. Another strength is the possibility of presenting results from a literature review in a systematic manner and using them thereafter in the communication process with stakeholders. Agent-oriented goal models that were created were easy to understand for health experts without previous experience in requirements engineering, which facilitates and supports collaboration with nontechnical stakeholders. Conclusions The proposed agent-oriented goal models effectively merged information from scientific literature and experts in the field and presented early functional, quality, and emotional requirements in a holistic and coherent manner. We believe that the created models have high potential to help requirements engineers and developers to provide more efficient ICT solutions that support PA among adolescents in the future.