Visual analytics for software requirements engineering

Abstract

The research on visual analytics for requirements engineering has noticeably advanced in the past few years. For many software projects, requirements management needs an effective and efficient path from data to decision. Visual analytics (VA) creates such a path that enables the user to extract insights by interacting with the relevant information. While various requirements visualization techniques exist, only few have produced end-to-end values to practitioners. In this research proposal, we advance the literature on visual requirements analytics by characterizing its key components and relationships. Such a characterization allows us to not only assess existing approaches, but also develop tool enhancements in a principled manner. We describe our ongoing work on VA and outline future research plans.