Expanding Requirements Through Observation: An Experience Report

In this paper, we describe our use of ethnographic techniques for identifying requirements for a web-based system for automatic updates and data exchange in a financial investment company. During a six-month long internship, we observed stakeholders in their daily work, helped them use the system, and discussed the results of our observations with them. This helped us to define a more complete set of requirements than if we would have used only the traditional interview and workshop techniques. We describe the observations we made, analyze the results and discuss the key learning points.