Extended support for visualizing requirements: Filtering and tracing requirements in ReBlock

Abstract

The visualization of system requirements in a domain-independent, transparent and flexible manner with respect to the progress of the project for all project stakeholders is an area that still needs attention. There are several means to visualize requirements stored in a database, but few ways in which the status of a requirement - such as at what stage of realization it is at a given point in time, its associated dependencies with other requirements, multi-directional traces, and so on - can be discerned at a glance, while simultaneously keeping the overall big picture in view. The ReBlock plug-in was conceptualized and prototyped in order to address these limitations. Here, we discuss the implementation of several extensions to the initial prototype of the plug-in that make it more adaptable for visualizing a larger number of requirements. © 2014 IEEE.