Usability Insights for Requirements Engineering Tools: a User Study with Practitioners in Aeronautics

Requirements Engineering plays a crucial role in coordinating the different stakeholders needed for safe aeronautics systems engineering. We conducted a qualitative study, using interviews and mockups, with fifteen industrial practitioners from four aeronautics companies, to investigate what tasks are actually performed by requirements engineers and how current tools support these tasks. We found that RE-specific tools constrain engineers to a rigid workflow, which is conflicting with the adaptive exploration of the problem. Engineers often start by using general-purpose tools to foster exploration and collaborative work with suppliers, at the expense of traceability. When engineers shift to requirements refinement and verification, they must use RE-specific tools to grant traceability. Then, the lack of tool usability, yields significant time loss and dissatisfaction. Based on scenarios of observed RE practices and walkthrough, we formulate usability insights for RE-specific tools to conciliate flexibility and traceability throughout the RE process.