Analytic effectiveness evaluation of techniques for natural language software requirements testability

摘要

Testability is a quality characteristic that addresses the efficacy and effectiveness of software testing. In the literature testability has been principally considered from the point of view of design methodologies and coding techniques. Although these two aspects are very important for software testability, they are not the only ones that influence it. Requirements are another factor that can heavily affect software testability. The natural language requirements factor for software testability is characterized and discussed in this paper. The paper, after a survey on the state-of-the-art natural language-based techniques that can be used to reduce the negative effects of natural language in specifying requirements, defines the criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of these techniques and, finally, performs an analytic evaluation, according to those criteria.