An Experiment in Inspecting the Quality of Use Case Descriptions
Karl Cox, Aybüke Aurum, Ross Jeffery · 2008
Achieving higher quality software is one of the aims sought by development organizations worldwide. Establishing defect free statements of requirements is a key strategy for achieving improvements in quality. In this paper we present the results of a laboratory experiment that explored the application of a checklist in the process of inspecting use case descriptions. We compare the checklist with others in the literature then report experimental findings. A simple experimental design was adopted in which the control group used an ad hoc approach and the treatment group was provided with a six-point checklist. The defects identified in the experiment were classified at three levels of significance: i. Internal to the use case ii. Specification impact, and iii. Requirements impact. It was found that the identification of requirements defects was not significantly different between the control and treatment groups, but that more specification and internal defects were found by the groups using the checklist. In the paper we explore the implications of these findings. ACM Classification: D.2.1 (Software – Software Engineering – Requirements/Specifications) 1.