Early Requirements Validation with 3D Worlds

Abstract

It is a well-known fact the real significance of correctly determining requirements of a system at the very beginning of the development process. Indeed, experience demonstrates that the incorrect definition of requirements leads to development of deficient systems, increases the cost of its development or even causes projects to fail. Thus, it is crucial for clients to verify that the planned system satisfies their needs. In order to help users in the process of requirements understanding and validation this work proposes using 3D visualization techniques. The use of these techniques can reduce the communication gap between clients and developers resulting in a much more effective process of requirements validation. The approach tries to take advantage of the benefits of the 3D visualization, complementing this with the advantages of formal specifications. The approach proposes the use of formal specifications in a lighter way. This means that no formal reasoning (theorem proving) is carried out to check the properties of the specified system and the emphasis is focused on the execution and animation of the specification for early validation. A prototype tool that materializes the proposal was developed. The tool allows specifying the requirements in the formal language Z, defining a graphical representation of them and creating a 3D animated visualization of their execution through which the users can validate them.