Rapid Requirements Elicitation of Enterprise Applications Based on Executable Mockups

Abstract

Software development begins with the requirements. Misunderstandings with customers in this early phase of development result in wasted development time. This work investigates the possibility of using executable UI mockups in the initial phases of functional requirements elicitation during the development of business applications. Although there has been a lot of research in the field in recent years, we find that there is still a need to improve model-driven tool design in order to enable customer participation from the initial phases of requirement specifications based on working prototypes. These prototypes can directly be reused in the rest of the development process. To meet the goal, we have been developing an open-source solution called Kroki that enables rapid collaborative development. We conducted a series of 10 joint user sessions with domain experts from different domains and backgrounds, resulting in the prototype specifications ranging from 7 to 20 screen mockups accompanied with domain models, developed in two-hour time frames. In this paper, we present our tool design that contributes to rapid joint development, and the results from the user sessions.