This paper surveys and evaluates some techniques for eliciting requirements of computer-based systems, paying particular attention to how they deal with social issues. The methods surveyed include introspection, interviews, questionnaires, and protocol, conversation, interaction, and discourse analyses. Although they are relatively untried in Requirements Engineering, we believe there is much promise in the last three techniques, which grew out of ethnomethodology and sociolinguistics. In particular, they can elicit tacit knowledge by observing actual interactions in the workplace, and can also be applied to the system development process itself.

We seek to take some initial steps towards a theory of information that is adequate for understanding and designing systems that process information, i.e., information systems in a broad sense. Formal representations of information are needed in designing, using and maintaining such systems, especially when they are computer based. However, it is also necessary to take account of social context, including how information is produced and used, not merely how it is represented; that is, we need a social theory of information. Ideas from ethnomethodology and semiotics, as well as logic and the sociology of science, are used to explore the nature of information.

This paper surveys and evaluates some techniques for eliciting requirements of computer-based systems, paying particular attention to how they deal with social issues. The methods surveyed include introspection, interviews, questionnaires, and protocol, conversation, interaction, and discourse analyses. Although they are relatively untried in Requirements Engineering, we believe there is much promise in the last three techniques, which grew out of ethnomethodology and sociolinguistics. In particular, they can elicit tacit knowledge by observing actual interactions in the workplace, and can also be applied to the system development process itself.