Communicating the Variability of a Software-Product Family to Customers
G. Halmans, and K. Pohl. Software and System Modeling, 2 (1):
15-36(2003)
Abstract
Variability is a central concept in software
product family development. Variability empowers constructive
reuse and facilitates the derivation of different,
customer specific products from the product family.
If many customer specific requirements can be realised
by exploiting the product family variability, the reuse
achieved is obviously high. If not, the reuse is low. It is
thus important that the variability of the product family
is adequately considered when eliciting requirements
from the customer.
In this paper we sketch the challenges for requirements
engineering for product family applications. More
precisely we elaborate on the need to communicate the
variability of the product family to the customer.We differentiate
between variability aspects which are essential
for the customer and aspects which are more related to
the technical realisation and need thus not be communicated
to the customer. Motivated by the successful usage
of use cases in single product development we propose use
cases as communication medium for the product family
variability.We discuss and illustrate which customer relevant
variability aspects can be represented with use cases,
and for which aspects use cases are not suitable. Moreover
we propose extensions to use case diagrams to support an
intuitive representation of customer relevant variability
aspects.
%0 Journal Article
%1 journals/sosym/HalmansP03
%A Halmans, Günter
%A Pohl, Klaus
%D 2003
%J Software and System Modeling
%K UML Use-Cases engineering line product requirements variability
%N 1
%P 15-36
%T Communicating the Variability of a Software-Product Family to Customers
%V 2
%X Variability is a central concept in software
product family development. Variability empowers constructive
reuse and facilitates the derivation of different,
customer specific products from the product family.
If many customer specific requirements can be realised
by exploiting the product family variability, the reuse
achieved is obviously high. If not, the reuse is low. It is
thus important that the variability of the product family
is adequately considered when eliciting requirements
from the customer.
In this paper we sketch the challenges for requirements
engineering for product family applications. More
precisely we elaborate on the need to communicate the
variability of the product family to the customer.We differentiate
between variability aspects which are essential
for the customer and aspects which are more related to
the technical realisation and need thus not be communicated
to the customer. Motivated by the successful usage
of use cases in single product development we propose use
cases as communication medium for the product family
variability.We discuss and illustrate which customer relevant
variability aspects can be represented with use cases,
and for which aspects use cases are not suitable. Moreover
we propose extensions to use case diagrams to support an
intuitive representation of customer relevant variability
aspects.
@article{journals/sosym/HalmansP03,
abstract = {Variability is a central concept in software
product family development. Variability empowers constructive
reuse and facilitates the derivation of different,
customer specific products from the product family.
If many customer specific requirements can be realised
by exploiting the product family variability, the reuse
achieved is obviously high. If not, the reuse is low. It is
thus important that the variability of the product family
is adequately considered when eliciting requirements
from the customer.
In this paper we sketch the challenges for requirements
engineering for product family applications. More
precisely we elaborate on the need to communicate the
variability of the product family to the customer.We differentiate
between variability aspects which are essential
for the customer and aspects which are more related to
the technical realisation and need thus not be communicated
to the customer. Motivated by the successful usage
of use cases in single product development we propose use
cases as communication medium for the product family
variability.We discuss and illustrate which customer relevant
variability aspects can be represented with use cases,
and for which aspects use cases are not suitable. Moreover
we propose extensions to use case diagrams to support an
intuitive representation of customer relevant variability
aspects.},
added-at = {2008-07-23T12:22:05.000+0200},
author = {Halmans, G{\"u}nter and Pohl, Klaus},
bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2c37414fb6a915ce97fd08495ccf0fe48/ist_spl},
description = {DBLP Record 'journals/sosym/HalmansP03'},
interhash = {0c8cbbea4d7c60b6db9f47ae57bb41b0},
intrahash = {c37414fb6a915ce97fd08495ccf0fe48},
journal = {Software and System Modeling},
keywords = {UML Use-Cases engineering line product requirements variability},
number = 1,
pages = {15-36},
timestamp = {2008-07-23T12:22:05.000+0200},
title = {Communicating the Variability of a Software-Product Family to Customers},
volume = 2,
year = 2003
}