Creating User Scenarios through User Interaction Diagrams by Non-Technical Customers

This paper investigates the applicability of User Interaction Diagrams (UIDs) as user scenarios for specifying requirements of software built by non-technical customers. User scenarios represent an alternative to representation of Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD). Two methods for building user scenarios using UIDs were proposed: the progressive and the regressive methods. The progressive method for construction of scenarios provides a description from any starting point until the expected result is reached. The regressive method is based on the Assert-First technique, introduced in Test-Driven Development (TDD), where the user scenario is constructed the other way round, that is, from the expected result to the starting point. These two methods were applied in an experiment where the results demonstrated that the regressive method requires significantly less effort as compared to the progressive method. The quality criteria of the two methods were different, where the regressive method yielded better results.