Overview

Analysis is the process of understanding what it is that the client, users and stakeholders want from the system that is being developed.

There needs to be a detailed list of the requirements for the produce. This will form the basis of a contract between the developer and the client and will be legally binding.

We will consider the following at the analysis stage:

• Requirements specifications for end-users:
  • A requirements specification
  • End user requirements
  • The scope and boundaries of the project
  • A list of constraints on the project
  • The functional requirements for the project
• Research:
  • Feasibility studies
  • User surveys
• Planning:
  • Scheduling
  • Resources
  • Gantt charts
• Unified Modelling Language (UML)

Requirements Specification

The requirements specification details the scope, boundaries and constraints of the intended software, details the basis of payment for the work to be completed and sets out how the software will be designed, tested, documented and evaluated before hand over to the customer. It may also detail any longer-term maintenance agreement between the customer and the developer.

End User Requirements

We can use:

• Personas – a representation of the goals and behaviour of a hypothesized group of users. In most cases, personas are created from data collected form interviews with users.
• User Stories – a short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer of the system.
• User Scenarios – describes the stories and context behind why a specific user or user group comes to your site or uses your application. They note the goals and questions to be achieved and sometimes define the possibilities to be achieved of how the user(s) can achieve them on the site.
• User Case – an approach used in system analysis to identify, clarify, and organise system requirements. Use cases are made up of sets of possible sequences of interaction between systems and users in a particular environment and related to a particular goal.

To help generate a list of what the users would expect from the software being created.

Purpose, Scope and Boundaries