The Effect of Communication-Language Designs on Software Specifications.

Abstract

The development of complete and accurate software-requirements specification is acknowledged to be a critical factor in the development of software that solves a customer's software problems. The development process usually involves the interaction of one or more customer representatives (users) with one or more software engineers. Among the difficulties frequently experienced in this interaction, one is that the users and the software engineers are each familiar with a different language - the argon common to their respective fields, but not common to both. The research described here was an original investigation of the effect of various language designs on the interaction of a non-programming user (experienced in inventory-control systems) with an experienced software engineer, as they endeavored to develop requirements specifications in a cooperative manner. The variations in language design that were studied included: the introduction of collective terms into an existing language, and the use of abbreviations. Additional keywords: cost effectiveness; experimental design; commands; user needs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1985
Accession Number
ADA155173

Entities

People

  • E. M. Connelly
  • K. J. Garbelman

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Analysis Of Variance
  • Applied Psychology
  • Computer Programming
  • Control Systems
  • Data Science
  • Engineers
  • Experimental Design
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Information Processing
  • Information Science
  • Inventory Control
  • Literature Surveys
  • Military Research
  • Navy
  • Psychology
  • Software Development

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computational Linguistics
  • Computer Science.
  • Systems Analysis and Design