Title: Informal approach based on user involvement to overcome uncertainties in a software project and to achieve high quality of an innovative product

Authors: Barbara Begier

Addresses: Institute of Control and Information Engineering, Poznan University of Technology, pl. M. Sklodowskiej-Curie 5, 60-965 Poznan, Poland

Abstract: There are serious problems with uncertainty referred to various aspects during evolutional development of an innovative software product. An open list of uncertain items in an expert system development is presented. In AI area some formal approaches to uncertainties are applied to build an expert system for medical diagnostics. Following the general idea applied in medicine, an informal approach to reduce uncertainties concerning product functions and handled data has been applied to improve software product quality. If symptoms of software 'disease' are learnt then the proper diagnosis and therapy may be specified. Various forms of user centeredness in a software process are discussed. Among other activities, the periodical assessment of a software product by its users is recommended to reduce some uncertainties. Users provide this way the regular feedback on a product. The experience, related to the developed non-trivial expert system assessed by its users, is described.

Keywords: expert system development; uncertain data; informal approach; uncertainties; user centeredness; user feedback; software quality; software product assessment; uncertainty reduction; expert systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIIDS.2013.053828

International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems, 2013 Vol.7 No.3, pp.278 - 293

Received: 20 Dec 2011
Accepted: 12 Aug 2012
Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

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