Supporting Requirements Communication for Shared Understanding by Applying Vision Videos in Requirements Engineering

Requirements engineering (RE) has the overall goal of establishing the vision of the system in its relevant context. For this goal, all stakeholders must disclose, discuss, and align their mental models of the system by explicitly communicating their goals, ideas, needs, and expectations. This procedure serves to develop and negotiate a shared understanding and is called requirements communication.

In this thesis, I analyze the application of videos as a documentation option in RE to support effective requirements communication for shared understanding. Videos used for this purpose are called vision videos.

Based on a technology transfer process, I develop a candidate solution consisting of the two concepts video as a by-product and awareness and guidance. The first concept supports the revision of RE practices by integrating video production and use to obtain videos as a by-product with low effort and sufficient quality. The second concept helps software professionals with video production and use by creating awareness regarding video quality and providing guidance on how to proceed. Each concept is first validated in academia before the entire candidate solution is validated in a case study in the industry.

The findings from academia and industry indicate that the candidate solution helps software professionals to gain the required awareness, knowledge, and ability to produce and use vision videos at moderate costs and with sufficient quality. These videos are suitable for the intended purpose of supporting requirements communication for shared understanding.