Object-Oriented Requirements: a Unified Framework for Specifications, Scenarios and Tests

By: Maria Naumcheva, Sophie Ebersold, Alexandr Naumchev, Jean-Michel Bruel, Florian Galinier, Bertrand Meyer

Abstract

A paradox of requirements specifications as dominantly practiced in the industry is that they often claim to be object-oriented (OO) but largely rely on procedural (non-OO) techniques. Use cases and user stories describe functional flows, not object types. To gain the benefits provided by object technology (such as extendibility, reusability, and reliability), requirements should instead take advantage of the same data abstraction concepts – classes, inheritance, information hiding – as OO design and OO programs.Many people find use cases and user stories appealing because of the simplicity and practicality of the concepts. Can we reconcile requirements with object-oriented principles and get the best of both worlds? This article proposes a unified framework. It shows that the concept of class is general enough to describe not only “object” in a narrow sense but also scenarios such as use cases and user stories and other important artifacts such as test cases and oracles. Having a single framework opens the way to requirements that enjoy the benefits of both approaches: like use cases and user stories, they reflect the practical views of stakeholders; like object-oriented requirements, they lend themselves to evolution and reuse.

Keywords

Software requirements, use cases, scenarios, scenario-based testing, object-oriented requirements, specifications.

Cite as:

Maria Naumcheva, Sophie Ebersold, Alexandr Naumchev, Jean-Michel Bruel, Florian Galinier, Bertrand Meyer, “Object-Oriented Requirements: a Unified Framework for Specifications, Scenarios and Tests”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 22, no. 1 ( 2023), pp. 1:1-19, doi:10.5381/jot.2023.22.1.a3.