Pseudo Software: a New Concept for Iterative Requirement Development and Validation

Abstract

Requirements development and validation are generally agreed to be a difficult task. Current software development methodologies rely on various forms of incremental and iterative strategies to complete the task. While regarded to be effective, the strategies become limited in software outsourcing, which often requires the outsourcer to complete and validate requirements before construction work by the supplier can begin. This article presents pseudo software, a conceptual framework for iterative requirements development and validation that facilitates wide stakeholder participation by realizing tangibility of the software under construction in the early stage through simulation. Requirements are recorded in highly readable forms, including GUI mockups for presentation and free-format text descriptions for computational logic. Tool support for pseudo software and its applications are discussed.