ShapeRE: Towards a Multi-Dimensional Representation for Requirements of Sustainable Software
Yen Dieu Pham, Abir Bouraffa, Walid Maalej · 2020
In this paper we introduce the preliminary design of a new framework named ShapeRE, which will address two problems potentially impeding the development of sustainable software. The first problem is the common differentiation between “functional” and “non-functional” requirements, which hides relevant sustainability requirements and hampers their identification. The second problem is the lack of developer-oriented representation approaches to ensure that all requirements relevant to sustainable software will be finally implemented. To address these two issues ShapeRE provides an alternative multi-dimensional approach for identifying requirements and a developer-oriented representation guideline. We suggest nine dimensions which are social, economic, environmental, technical, individual, purpose, design-aesthetics, integrative and legal. The design of our frame-work relies on insights from the fields of linguistics and empirical aesthetics, requirements engineering, and building architecture. We introduce the framework and discuss our evaluation strategy consisting of an online-experiment, a case study, and a survey.