Good reference on visualizing requirements?

[MGoyal]

Hi,

Can someone recommend a good online or offline resource for help with using models to visualize requirements as a means to more effectively get a complete set of requirements?

Thanks.

[MAlexander]

As part of the IEEE Requirements Engineering conference, there's a workshop on Requirements Visualization. You might check out the proceedings of that conference/workshop for good info.

For information visualization in general (not requirements-specific), try Edward Tufte (www.edwardtufte.com) as a good starting point.

[MGoyal]

Thanks for the info MAlexander. FWIW, I'm familar with Tufte, but haven't checked out his work yet. Will do.

Also didn't know about the R.V. workshop. very cool. i think this topic is just on the upswing in terms of being recognized for the value it provides.

[joe]

Visualization is one of these buzzwords that I'm not sure I'm completely sold on yet. The concept is sound, but I think sometimes people forget that you need a reason to visualize things.

Do you guys have any examples of how visualizing requirements is useful (other than the normal things like process flows)?

joe (devil's advocate)

[MAlexander]

There's a lot of research in the area that shows how visualization of requirements information (and other types of information) is indeed useful. Try a Google scholar search for "information visualization" and "software requirements" for a sampling of the papers. Also, this book (http://www.amazon.com/Readings-Information-Visualization-Interactive-Technologies/dp/1558605339/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198082120&sr=8-1) seems to be a good primer on the benefits of visualization.

[Dan]

if by visualization folks mean (for arguments sake) "use of pictures/images/diagrams" then I'm a big fan of a combination of "visualized" info and textual info complementing each other. All communication methods fall on the continuum of abstraction, in general, visualizations are more abstract (and therefore more open to interpretation) than (well-chosen/written) words.