Capturing consumer preferences as requirements for software product lines

Abstract

Delivering great consumer experiences in competitive market conditions requires software vendors to move away from traditional modes of thinking to an outside-in perspective, one that shifts their business to becoming consumer-centric. Requirements engineers operating in these conditions thus need new means to both capture real preferences of consumers and then relate them to requirements for software customized in different ways to fit anyone. Additionally, because system development models require inputs that are more concrete than abstract, the indistinct values of consumers need to be classified and formalized. To address this challenge, this study aims to establish a conceptual link between preferences of consumers and system requirements, using software product line (SPL) as a means for systematically accommodating the variations within the preferences. The novelty of this study is a conceptual model of consumer preference, which integrates generic value frameworks from both psychology and marketing, and a method for its transformation to requirements for SPL using a goal-oriented RE framework as the mediator. The presented artifacts are grounded in an empirical study related to the development of a system for online education.

Extending Enterprise Architectures to Capture Consumer Values: The Case of TOGAF

“…In [24] the Consumer Preference-aware Meta-Model (CPMM) is proposed to explicitly address consumer preferences as an important requirement for information systems development. It accomplishes this by addressing preferences-for example, the Needs of Maslow and Basic Values of Schwartz are seen as generic drivers of human actions, while Holbrook's value framework (Consumer Value) concerns preferences on consumption, i.e.…”

“…Many authors have pointed out that cultural and psychological dimensions of consumer behavior should be seen as the core of retail strategy [4,24] as such data could allow marketers to create new consumer experiences [2,3].…”

“…A survey of practicing enterprise architects demonstrates the need for consumer values to be included into enterprise architecture, while also evaluating an initial attempt at integrating consumer values into EA. Next, a known meta-model for working with consumer values-the Consumer Preference Meta-Model [19,20,24]-is utilized to capture consumer values and provide them to TOGAF. This paper is structured accordingly: Sect.…”

Transformation towards agile software product line engineering in large companies: A literature review

“…This includes discussing which specific products and features a product line shall support, analyzing the domain, exploring potentials for the use of SPLs, and deciding which components shall be part of the underlying platform . Zdravkovic et al present an approach for analyzing the variation in consumers' preference and transform them into requirements for a SPL. The method consists of a preference‐capturing phase and a goal derivation phase.…”

Exploring the Relations Between Net Benefits of IT Projects and CIOs’ Perception of Quality of Software Development Disciplines

“…For this reason, their software development processes need to facilitate development of complex software products for demanding customers. Under these conditions, the software development process has to produce and support software products that fit many consumers, while at the same time achieve economic and design sustainability (Zdravkovic et al 2015). This challenges software development enterprises to select and adapt their software development processes to support such software development projects (Bass 2016).…”