Elicitation Revisited for More Inclusive Requirements Engineering

James Tizard, Tim Rietz, and Kelly Blincoe To create inclusive software, development teams need to consider how they identify inclusive requirements for a software product. Requirements elicitation is the first stage in the process of developing the requirements of a software system. Elicitation is about describing the functionality, reliability, efficiency, and usability of the system to be developed, so that it suits the end users’ needs [12]. Recent research has found that both traditional elicitation techniques (e.g., user interviews) and newer online crowd-based approaches may have challenges in gathering the views of a diverse set of users. In particular, there are significant challenges in eliciting requirements from users with cognitive disabilities, as well as ensuring that the full demographic spectrum (e.g., by gender, age, ethnicity) of a user base is adequately represented. This chapter discusses the motivations for more inclusive requirements elicitation and the challenges that need to be overcome and finally makes recommendations for both requirements engineering practitioners and researchers.