Influence Maps: Exploring the Dependencies Between “Soft” and “Hard” Requirements

Soft requirements such as values, motivations, emotions and beliefs have been proposed as significant phenomena which should be considered during the requirements process. However, it is not clear how such phenomena might augment current goal modelling in i* beyond supporting or hindering relationships in goal modelling or representing weak dependencies between actors and soft goals. This chapter explores this question through a case study of technology-enhanced home-based support for senior citizens. i* models are elaborated with values and other soft requirements to evaluate the effectiveness of problem representation for understanding the complexities of requirements for senior health care, and exploring how other knowledge representations might help the analysis process by setting the context for prioritizing goals and hence functional requirements and specification of agents’ capabilities, as well as evaluating trade-offs between conflicting goals.