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Collecting product-based usability requirements
DiAngelo M., Petrun C. IBM Systems Journal34 (1):4-19,1995.Type:Article
Date Reviewed: Jul 1 1996

The Customer Requirements and Task Specification (CRTS) methodology has been used successfully on many projects within IBM; the discussion here of its philosophy, evolution, and tools, as well as some high-level details, is aimed at both IBM and non-IBM audiences. Interestingly, the CRTS methodology was developed to satisfy the need for a realistic testing environment for IBM products. Testing tends to be seen as coming much later in the software life cycle than requirements, but the fact is that requirements and testing are closely related, as the birth of this methodology bears out. Defect elimination must be linked to the process of requirements collection, as simply looking for defects and correcting them may lead to a stable but stagnant product. Identifying customer wants and needs is at the heart of requirements collection. Three key features of CRTS methodology are that:

  • requirements come directly from the customers in their own words. There is no interpretation by anyone other than the customer;

  • requirements are based on the activities to be performed with the product; and

  • product measurements are defined by the customer in the customer’s own terms, so that they measure satisfaction as well as productivity.

Product usability is extremely important to the customer, and CRTS, by focusing on customer tasks and satisfaction, emphasizes that usability.

A list is provided of 14 points that should be covered in a CRTS session. The list is fairly comprehensive. Under CRTS methodology, the customers provide all the input and do high-level analysis online in one sitting. This is made possible using Team Focus software, with several tools, including Electronic Brain Storming (EBS), Idea Organizing, Voting Tools, and so on.

Future research directions are also described, which are intended to ensure that CRTS remains customer-driven and flexible, and that the cycle time and costs for gathering customer requirements remain low.

The authors make CRTS seem fascinating. Perhaps some empirical data collection could be done on the usability of products developed with CRTS (compared to other methodologies) to verify how much impact CRTS is having on product usability.

Reviewer:  Jagdish C. Agrawal Review #: CR124496 (9607-0501)
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Methodologies (D.2.1 ... )
 
 
Management (D.2.9 )
 
 
User Interfaces (H.5.2 )
 
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