Software requirements include three distinct levels: business requirements, user requirements, and functional requirements.
Business requirements represent the high-level goals of an enterprise or customer . The business requirements describe why the company develops a website, that is, the goals that the website hopes to achieve. They usually come from project investors, customers who buy products, managers of actual users, marketing departments or product planning departments. Document business requirements using a vision and scope document, sometimes referred to as a project outline or a project charter or market requirement document.
User requirements represent the goals of the user, or tasks that the user requires that the system must be able to accomplish . User requirements are collected from different perspectives, from the user's point of view, to collect the user's specific requirements description, organize them, and write a document. That is, user requirements describe what users can do with the system.
Functional requirements specify the software features that developers must implement in the product and that users use to complete tasks and meet business needs . Functional requirements are sometimes referred to as behavioral requirements because they are traditionally described as "should": "The system should send an email to notify the user that their reservation has been accepted". The functional requirement description is what the developer needs to implement.
So what is the process of needs analysis? Through years of work experience, it is recommended to take the following steps to form website development requirements:
Obtain user requirements → analyze user requirements → write requirements documents → review requirements documents → manage requirements.
Below we discuss the above approach step by step.
Originally, obtaining user needs was a simple process, as long as the customer provided a complete description of the needs, but this is not the case. Many customers are not very clear about their needs and need your continuous guidance and help in analysis. Once, I asked a client: "What is the purpose of your website?" He replied: "There is no purpose, just because everyone else has it, I don't!". Such a customer needs to explain patiently, analyze it carefully, dig out his potential and real needs, and cooperate with the customer to write a detailed and complete description of requirements. Satisfied, sign approval. Doing this well can prevent many mistakes and project failures caused by unclear requirements or misunderstandings.
In order to obtain the needs of users, in-depth analysis and sorting are required. Analyzing the needs of users can follow a few common guidelines:
(1) For each requirement put forward by the user, we must know the "why", and judge whether there is sufficient reason for the demand put forward by the user;
(2) Convert the expression of "how to achieve" into "what to achieve", because the goal of the requirements analysis stage is "what to do", not "how to do it";
(3) Analyze the implicit needs derived from user needs, and identify the implicit needs that are not clearly put forward by users (which may be the preconditions for realizing user needs). Insufficient enough to cause changes in requirements.
Through the analysis of customer needs, it is enough to make the requirements specification meet the following standards:
1. Correctness: each function must clearly describe the delivered function;
2. Feasibility: ensure that each requirement can be realized under the current development capability and system environment;
3. Necessity: whether the function must be delivered, whether it can be delayed, and whether it can be "cut" when the cost reduction situation occurs;
4. Conciseness: Do not use professional networking terms;
5. Testability: If the development is completed, customers can test according to their needs.