The following list describes the various kinds documents that belong to the body of requirements and specifications document. All are not mandatory for each and every software project, but they do provide important information to the developers, designers and engineers tasked with implementing a project and to the quality assurance people and testers responsible for evaluating the implementation of the project. These topics may also be combined as sections of larger and inclusive requirements and specifications documents.
User Requirements
User requirements typically describe the needs, goals, and tasks of the user. The word, “typically” is used here because often these user requirements don’t reflect the actual person who will be using the software; projects are often tailored to the needs of the project requester, and not the end-user of the software. User requirements are usually defined after the completion of task analysis, the examination of the tasks and goals of the end-user.
System Requirements
The term system requirements has two meanings. First, it can refer to the requirements that describe the capabilities of the system with which, through which, and on which the product will function.
Second, it can refer to the requirements that describe the product itself, with the meaning that the product is a system.
There are two categories of system requirements. Functional requirements specify what the system must do. User requirements specify the acceptable level of user performance and satisfaction with the system.
Functional Requirements
Functional requirements describe what the software or web site is supposed to do by defining functions and high-level logic.
In many cases, if the user requirements are written for the requestor and not the end-user, the user requirements are combined with the functional requirements; this is common within companies that have a strong Information Technology department that is tasked with doing the work.
Functional Specifications
Functional specifications describe the necessary functions at the level of units and components; these specifications are typically used to build the system exclusive of the user interface.
With respect to a web site, a unit is the design for a specific page or category of page, and the functional specification would detail the functional elements of that page or page type. For example, the design for the page may require the following functions: email submission form, search form, context-sensitive navigation elements, logic to drop and/or read a client-side cookie, etc. These aren’t “look” issues so much as they are “functionality” issues. A component is a set of page states or closely related forms of a page. For example, a component might include a page that has a submission form, the acknowledgement page (i.e., “thanks for submitting”), and the various error states (i.e., “you must include your email address”, “you must fill in all required fields”, etc.).
The functional specifications document might have implications about the design of the user interface, but these implications are typically superceded by a formal design specification and/or prototype.
Design Specifications
The design specifications address the “look and feel” of the interface, with rules for the display of global and particular elements.
0 comments:
Post a Comment