Towards an Ontology-Based Approach for Eliciting Possible Solutions to Non-Functional Requirements

Requirements Engineering plays a crucial role in the software development process. Many works have pointed out that Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) are critical to the quality of software systems. NFRs, also known as quality requirements, can be difficult to elicit due to their subjective diversity nature. In this paper, we introduce the QR Framework which uses an ontology-based approach to support the collection of knowledge on possible solutions to implement NFRs, semi-automatically connecting related NFRs. Preliminary search mechanisms are provided in a tool to facilitate the identification of possible solutions to an NFR and their related consequences to other solutions and/or other NFRs. To evaluate whether our approach aids eliciting NFRs, we conducted a controlled experiment performing a software development scenario. Our results suggest that reusing NFR knowledge can drive software engineers to obtain a closer to complete set of possible solutions to address quality concerns.