On the structure of problem variability: From feature diagrams to problem frames
Andreas Claßen, Patrick Heymans, Robin Laney, Bashar Nuseibeh, Thein Than Tun · Open Research Online - ORO (The Open University) · 2007
Requirements for product families are expressed in terms of commonality and variability. This distinction allows early identification of an appropriate software architecture and opportunities for software reuse. Feature diagrams pro-vide intuitive notations and techniques for representing re-quirements in product line development. In this paper, we observe that feature diagrams tend to obfuscate three im-portant descriptions: requirements, domain properties and specifications. As a result, feature diagrams do not ade-quately capture the problem structures that underlie vari-ability, and inform the solution structures of their complex-ity. With its emphasis on separation of the three descrip-tions, the problem frames approach provides a conceptual framework for a more detailed analysis of variability and its structure. With illustrations from an example, we demon-strate how problem frames analysis of variability can aug-ment feature diagrams. 1