Enrichment of Requirements Specifications with Videos - Enhancing the Comprehensibility of Textual Requirements

Abstract

Requirements for a software product are mainly shared through a textual specification. One key ability in successful software organizations is a good requirements communication based on understandable information. Developers can only implement a useful and satisfying software product if they obtain and understand requirements properly. One challenge of writing requirements is to describe complex and interactive contents in an understandable manner. Videos offer a large potential to achieve such an easy-to-understand representation. Attached videos can enhance the reader’s understanding by using them as supplementary material for specifications. Despite their large potential, videos are not an established part of requirements specifications: The effort to produce videos is high, the corresponding motivation is low and the use of videos is cumbersome due to missing links between requirements and videos. We propose guidelines to support the identification of content which is appropriate to be supplemented by videos. We develope a starting set of guidelines that consider the different information types of a requirements specification with their presentation modes and characteristics. This paper presents an overview of our findings about improving the content-related linking between requirements and videos. We discuss the perspectives, advantages and obstacles for enhancing the comprehensibility of textual requirements conveyed by videos.