Abstract
There is currently a trend that highlights the interest in the use of Design Thinking techniques for the elicitation of requirements. The evidence concerning the effectiveness of these techniques is, however, still scarce, which has consequently led us to carry out a quasi-experiment in order to evaluate the effectiveness of one of the most frequently used DT techniques: Empathy Maps. Empathy Maps were employed by students enrolled on a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain in order to understand their influence on the effectiveness of Brainstorming sessions, which was measured in terms of the quantity of requirements attained. The students perceived a slightly positive influence as regards the use of the Empathy Maps as part of a requirements elicitation, despite not finding statistically positive results in favour of Empathy Maps. We obtained several insights that may be useful for practitioners, researchers and lecturers interested in using this type of techniques to improve the requirements elicitation practices currently employed to develop information systems, although this preliminary result is not conclusive and should be corroborated in further studies.
Paper Type
Full Paper
Studying the Influence of Empathy Maps on Brainstorming for Requirements Elicitation: A Quasi-Experiment
There is currently a trend that highlights the interest in the use of Design Thinking techniques for the elicitation of requirements. The evidence concerning the effectiveness of these techniques is, however, still scarce, which has consequently led us to carry out a quasi-experiment in order to evaluate the effectiveness of one of the most frequently used DT techniques: Empathy Maps. Empathy Maps were employed by students enrolled on a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain in order to understand their influence on the effectiveness of Brainstorming sessions, which was measured in terms of the quantity of requirements attained. The students perceived a slightly positive influence as regards the use of the Empathy Maps as part of a requirements elicitation, despite not finding statistically positive results in favour of Empathy Maps. We obtained several insights that may be useful for practitioners, researchers and lecturers interested in using this type of techniques to improve the requirements elicitation practices currently employed to develop information systems, although this preliminary result is not conclusive and should be corroborated in further studies.
Recommended Citation
Kahan, E., Insfrán, E., Genero, M., & Oliveros, A. (2021). Studying the Influence of Empathy Maps on Brainstorming for Requirements Elicitation: A Quasi-Experiment. In E. Insfran, F. González, S. Abrahão, M. Fernández, C. Barry, H. Linger, M. Lang, & C. Schneider (Eds.), Information Systems Development: Crossing Boundaries between Development and Operations (DevOps) in Information Systems (ISD2021 Proceedings). Valencia, Spain: Universitat Politècnica de València.