App store-inspired elicitation is the practice of exploring competitors' apps, to get inspiration for requirements. This activity is common among developers, but little insight is available on its practical use, advantages, and possible issues. This paper aims to study strategies, benefits, and challenges of app store-inspired elicitation, and to compare this technique with the more traditional requirements elicitation interviews. We conduct an experimental simulation with 58 analysts and collect qualitative data. Our results show that: (1) specific guidelines and procedures are required to better conduct app store-inspired elicitation; (2) current search features made available by app stores are not suitable for this practice, and more tool support is required to help analysts in the retrieval and evaluation of competing products; (3) while interviews focus on the why dimension of requirements engineering (i.e., goals), app store-inspired elicitation focuses on how (i.e., solutions), offering indications for implementation and improved usability. Our study provides a framework for researchers to address existing challenges and suggests possible benefits to foster app store-inspired elicitation among practitioners.
翻译:在开发商中,这种活动很常见,但很少了解其实际用途、优势和可能的问题。本文的目的是研究应用程序引发的诱导的战略、好处和挑战,并将这种技术与较传统要求的诱导性访谈进行比较。我们与58名分析员进行实验模拟,收集定性数据。我们的研究结果表明:(1) 需要具体的指南和程序来更好地进行应用程序引发的诱导;(2) 应用程序商店提供的当前搜索功能不适合这种做法,需要提供更多的工具支持来帮助分析家检索和评价竞争产品;(3) 访谈的重点是需求工程(即目标)的层面,应用激发的引导性侧重于如何(即解决方案),提出实施指标,提高可用性。我们的研究为研究人员提供了一个框架,以应对现有挑战,并提出在从业人员中促进应用程序激发性启导的可能好处。