Using Design-science for the Representation of Non Functional Requirements

Context: In software development, non-functional requirements (NFRs) determine a large part of the quality of software products. Despite this, the Software Industry does not yet have a clear outlook of how to elicit this type of requirements from the early stages of development. Proposal: Given this problem, the MERliNN Framework was created to support this process of elicitation of NFRs based in knowledge management, which is evolving through the construction of a component for the iconographic representation of NFRs, called NFR-REP. Objective: To present the progress in the construction of the NFR-REP component to represent the NFRs. Method: The Design-science methodology is used to construct the representation component, and semantic analysis to determine the structure and constituent elements of the component. Results: Two elements of the component are defined: (1) the aspects of the NFRs identified from the literature, (2) the strategy to represent the NFRs supported by the theory of semiotics and signs. Conclusions: (1) the methods used for the construction of the component NFR-REP are adequate to guide such construction, (2) the theory of semiotics gives capacity to the component of NFRs representation of address the knowledge problem against NFRs.