Towards a framework for selecting notations for modelling requirements

Abstract

An acknowledged problem in software development is that a poor choice of notations may all too often have a detrimental effect on development activities, but full scale of evaluation of every notation in the context of every development project would be neither feasible nor sensible. This is particularly the case in the area of requirements modelling and specification, where the number and variety of available techniques makes selection of the most appropriate notation difficult and prone to error. There is currently little in the way of theoretical guidelines or empirical case studies to support the requirements engineer in making a sound choice of modelling notation in any particular situation. This paper presents and evaluates a principled approach to the selection of modelling notations, with the ultimate aim of assisting practising software developers in making quick but useful evaluations of available modelling notations in the context of particular development situations.