Specification for Visual Requirements of Work-Centered Software Systems

Abstract

Work-centered software systems function as inherent work-aiding systems. Based on the design concept for a work-centered support system (WCSS), these software systems support user tasks and goals through both direct and indirect aiding methods within the interface client. In order to ensure the coherent development and delivery of work-centered software products, WCSS visual requirements must be specified to capture the cognitive aspects of the user interface design. A work-centered specification language based on the user interface markup language (UIML) is an effective solution to bridging this gap between cognitive systems engineering and software engineering. In this paper, we propose a new visual requirements specification language that can capture and describe work-centered visual requirements within a semi-formal syntax. The proposed language can also be easily integrated into a UML object model via the use of UML's extensibility features. A specification language for visual requirements could be employed by cognitive engineers and design teams to help convey requirements in a comprehensible format that is suitable for a software engineer. Such a solution provides coherency in the software modeling process of developing work-centered software systems