Capturing user requirements and priorities for innovative interactive systems

We present a new method for capturing requirements and priorities that can be used in the development of highly innovative interactive systems. We are concerned with the development of interactive systems that cannot be treated simply as incremental improvements over existing products. In such cases, it is not possible to identify user requirements on the basis of empirical techniques, as there are no instances of use of the product (or products of a similar type) from which to collect data. Consequently, the developers of innovative products must proceed by envisioning the use of the proposed product and examining hypothetical interactions with potential or surrogate users. Our proposed approach provides structure to this process of envisioning and analysing hypothetical use. The method combines techniques drawn from the soft systems methodology, scenario based design, and from Quality Function Deployment (QFD). We illustrate the approach through application to a communications tool to support distributed collaborative software development.