DUSM: A Method for Requirements Specification and Refinement Based on Disciplined Use Cases and Screen Mockups

In this work, we present DUSM (Disciplined Use Cases with Screen Mockups), a novel method for describing and refining requirements specifications based on disciplined use cases and screen mockups. Disciplined use cases are characterized by a quite stringent template to prevent common mistakes, and to increase the quality of the specifications. Use cases descriptions are formulated in a structured natural language, which allows to reach a good level of precision, avoiding the need for further notations and complex models. Screen mockups are precisely associated with the steps of the use cases scenarios and they present the corresponding GUIs (graphical user interfaces) as seen by the human actors before/after the steps executions, improving the comprehension and the expression of the non-functional requirements on the user interface. DUSM has been proposed and fine-tuned during several editions of a software engineering course at the University of Genova. Then, by means of a series of case studies and experiments, we validated the method and evaluated: 1) its effectiveness in improving the comprehension and, in general, the quality of the produced requirements specification, and 2) its applicability in the industry, where the method has been found useful and not particularly onerous.