Software evolution ensures that software systems in use stay up to date and provide value for end-users. However, it is challenging for requirements engineers to continuously elicit needs for systems used by heterogeneous end-users who are out of organisational reach. Objective: We aim at supporting continuous requirements elicitation by combining user feedback and usage monitoring. Online feedback mechanisms enable end-users to remotely communicate problems, experiences, and opinions, while monitoring provides valuable information about runtime events. It is argued that bringing both information sources together can help requirements engineers to understand end-user needs better. Method/Tool: We present FAME, a framework for the combined and simultaneous collection of feedback and monitoring data in web and mobile contexts to support continuous requirements elicitation. In addition to a detailed discussion of our technical solution, we present the first evidence that FAME can be successfully introduced in real-world contexts. Therefore, we deployed FAME in a web application of a German small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) to collect user feedback and usage data. Results/Conclusion: Our results suggest that FAME not only can be successfully used in industrial environments but that bringing feedback and monitoring data together helps the SME to improve their understanding of end-user needs, ultimately supporting continuous requirements elicitation.

To validate developers' ideas of what users might want and to understand user needs, it has been proposed to collect and combine system monitoring with user feedback. [Question/problem] So far, the monitoring data and feedback have been collected passively, hoping for the users to get active when problems emerge. This approach leaves unexplored opportunities for system improvement when users are also passive or do not know that they are invited to offer feedback. [Principal ideas/results] In this paper, we show how we have used goal monitors to identify interesting situations of system use and let a system autonomously elicit user feedback in these situations. We have used a monitor to detect interesting situations in the use of a system and issued automated requests for user feedback to interpret the monitoring observations from the users' perspectives. [Contribution] The paper describes the implementation of our approach in a Smart City system and reports our results and experiences. It shows that combining system monitoring with proactive, autonomous feedback collection was useful and surfaced knowledge of system use that was relevant for system maintenance and evolution. The results were helpful for the city to adapt and improve the Smart City application and to maintain their internet-of-things deployment of sensors.

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