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- Title
Requirements Specifications and Anticipating User Needs: Methods and Warnings on Writing Development Narratives for New Software.
- Authors
Ballentine, Brian D.
- Abstract
Purpose: This article studies and determines the benefits for technical communicators using narrative to compose and edit software requirements specifications. Specifically, this article is an examination of requirements specifications written for a Web-based radiology application serving the medical industry. Method: The study adheres to the usability principle that successful design accommodates complex problem solving. Requirements specifications, the application, and the application's code are examined as part of the study. Results: The first determination is that composing detailed narratives within the requirements specifications can ensure flexible spaces for users, in this case doctors, to view, study, and manipulate data as they see fit. The article also acknowledges and accounts for the reality of low-level or code-level procedural programming required for creating such flexible spaces. The second determination is that employing narratological structures within requirements specifications also leads to technical inventions at the code level. Practitioners will have a better understanding of how their work facilitates the development of a software application's functionality, design, and even code. Conclusion: Ultimately, narrative is the suggested method for developing the flexible affordances desired by usability specialists and it simultaneously helps negotiate low-level code.
- Subjects
COMPUTER software development; TECHNICAL writing; COMMUNICATION of technical information; NARRATIVE inquiry (Research method); INVENTIONS; CIPHERS
- Publication
Technical Communication, 2010, Vol 57, Issue 1, p26
- ISSN
0049-3155
- Publication type
Article