VR4HcRE: Virtual reality platform for human-centric requirements elicitation

Virtual reality (VR) is an important interactive technology for collaboration and communication. However, VR has not been widely used for eliciting human-centric requirements in software engineering contexts, which is an important gap in both the application of VR technology and the research of software engineering. To fill this gap, in this paper, we develop the VR4HcRE platform as a remote multiplayer collaboration and communication system to explore its benefits in human-centric requirement engineering. We consult with software developers and requirements engineers, as stakeholders of the system, to define the features of the system, including remote multiplayer collaboration, audio transcription, simulation of human and environmental factors, and UI design based on mobile phone prototype. We conduct a pilot experiment with 21 participants. Preliminary results indicate that using VR to capture user or special user needs has the potential value, including improving collaboration interaction and requirements expression, and bringing a different sense of participation compared with the physical world. As an ongoing work, we hope this paper generates a series of new research ideas in virtual reality and requirements elicitation.