Observation (or job shadowing) is an effective way to elicit requirements from an end-user point of view [3]. Through this technique, requirement engineer can define what are the steps needed to perform every user task. This can be in details, or in an abstract view (as needed). Our reference [3] indicated three methods to conduct observation (or job shadowing) as the following:
Observation is a great technique to capture the current requirement or workflow, however it might have the following drawbacks:
- Job shadowing: analyst will be at the user site, and interact with user to understand how he/she perform his tasks. The analyst note the needed actions for every task.
- Videos: if available video recording of user activities which explains how user perform his/her tasks. Analyst can perform the observation offsite. Also, it worth mentioning that this method saves time.
- one-way mirror-type setup: this type is in between the two above, analyst will observe a real time activities of a user on a medium; like live video camera (with user permission). The advantage here is to observe more than one user at a time.
Observation is a great technique to capture the current requirement or workflow, however it might have the following drawbacks:
- Sometimes, users tend to over act when they’re observed.
- Time consuming: Analyst may spend a lot of time to observe users.
- Analyst needs to be critical to ignore any user behavior outside the job being observed.
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