TY - JOUR
T1 - Use of personas in requirements engineering
T2 - A systematic mapping study
AU - Karolita, Devi
AU - McIntosh, Jennifer
AU - Kanij, Tanjila
AU - Grundy, John
AU - Obie, Humphrey O.
N1 - Funding Information:
Karolita is supported by Australia Awards Scholarship and Monash Departmental Top-Up Scholarship for her Ph.D. study at Monash University, Australia.
Funding Information:
Grundy, Kanij and McIntosh are supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellowship project FL190100035 . McIntosh is also funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia Synergy Grant ( APP2010268 ) and NHMRC Participation in Cancer Screening Programs, Australia Grant ( APP2014703 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2023/10
Y1 - 2023/10
N2 - Context: Requirements Engineering (RE) is one of the crucial activities in software development that requires a high involvement of humans (i.e., stakeholders). The aim of RE-related tasks is to develop the scope of the target software products to ensure they will fulfil its stakeholder needs. In RE, the requirements engineers have to deeply understand the software stakeholders including their needs, motivations, and goals. Attaining this information directly from stakeholders requires regular interaction which needs considerable effort. The persona, as a user representation, is a useful tool that can reduce effort amount by modelling the software users and being the primary source of information. Objective: The aim of this work is to systematically review relevant studies that have investigated the use of personas in RE, the benefits of personas, and challenges during the implementation of personas in RE. Method: We conduct a systematic mapping study (SMS) using a formal protocol based on an established guideline. The systematic search result in a total of 904 publications from six databases. After filtering, we select 78 relevant studies for critical appraisal, analysis, synthesis, and reporting. Results: We identify methods to create and validate personas (mostly qualitative), map the benefits of using personas in RE (to ensure stakeholders’ satisfaction, support a human-centric RE, and support requirements engineers’ tasks and roles in RE), identify methods used with personas, discover challenges during persona incorporation in RE and their respective mitigation strategies, and recommend potential strategies for unaddressed challenges. We also make recommendations for future research directions. Conclusion: The findings of this SMS will help RE researchers and practitioners better understand the use of personas in RE and highlights key research gaps for future research.
AB - Context: Requirements Engineering (RE) is one of the crucial activities in software development that requires a high involvement of humans (i.e., stakeholders). The aim of RE-related tasks is to develop the scope of the target software products to ensure they will fulfil its stakeholder needs. In RE, the requirements engineers have to deeply understand the software stakeholders including their needs, motivations, and goals. Attaining this information directly from stakeholders requires regular interaction which needs considerable effort. The persona, as a user representation, is a useful tool that can reduce effort amount by modelling the software users and being the primary source of information. Objective: The aim of this work is to systematically review relevant studies that have investigated the use of personas in RE, the benefits of personas, and challenges during the implementation of personas in RE. Method: We conduct a systematic mapping study (SMS) using a formal protocol based on an established guideline. The systematic search result in a total of 904 publications from six databases. After filtering, we select 78 relevant studies for critical appraisal, analysis, synthesis, and reporting. Results: We identify methods to create and validate personas (mostly qualitative), map the benefits of using personas in RE (to ensure stakeholders’ satisfaction, support a human-centric RE, and support requirements engineers’ tasks and roles in RE), identify methods used with personas, discover challenges during persona incorporation in RE and their respective mitigation strategies, and recommend potential strategies for unaddressed challenges. We also make recommendations for future research directions. Conclusion: The findings of this SMS will help RE researchers and practitioners better understand the use of personas in RE and highlights key research gaps for future research.
KW - Personas
KW - Requirements Engineering
KW - Systematic mapping study
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85163202048&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107264
DO - 10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107264
M3 - Review Article
AN - SCOPUS:85163202048
SN - 0950-5849
VL - 162
JO - Information and Software Technology
JF - Information and Software Technology
M1 - 107264
ER -