eRequirement Elicitation Techniques for a C-Programming Learning Application

Abstract

Requirement elicitation is a part of the application development process which determines the functional and non-functional requirements of the application. This study has elicited the requirements of a programming learning application by using several requirement elicitation techniques. The purpose of the application is to assist novice programmers in learning C language programming. The requirement elicitation was done by using qualitative approaches in a triangulation strategy. The triangulation involved literature reviews on related existing C-programming applications and semi-structured interviews with five expert programming lecturers in Malaysian Polytechnic. The requirement elicitation has identified an important approach of a programming learning application which is the programming visualization to help novices understand the program execution behaviour better. It has determined that the application should visualize the variable contents and program execution steps as its functional requirements. Meanwhile, the non-functional requirement of the application is that the application should be designed to be a simple IDE-based application since it is targeting the novices. The finding from this requirement elicitation is essential in determining important functions to be available in the developed application and how it is supposed to be implemented. This application could enhance programming skills of the students and prepare them to be competent programmers for the future industrial demand.