User Requirements in Software Project

User Requirements

• The user requirements should describe functional and non functional requirements in such a way that they are understandable by system users who don’t have detailed technical knowledge.
• User requirements are defined using natural language, tables and diagrams because these are the representations that can be understood by all users.  Various problems that can arise in the requirement specifications when requirements are given in natural language.

Lack of Clarity

Sometimes requirements are given in ambiguous manner.   It is expected that text should help in clear and precise understanding of the requirements.

Requirements Confusion

There may be confusion in functional requirements and non functional requirements, system goals and design information.

Requirements mixture

There may be a chance of specifying several requirements together as a single requirement.

Guidelines for Writing User Requirements

• Prepare a standard format and use it for all requirements.


• Apply consistency in the language.  Use ‘Shall’ for mandatory requirements, And ‘should’ for desirable requirements.

• The text which is mentioning the key requirements should be highlighted.


• Avoid the use of computer jargan (Computer Terminologies).  It should be written in simple language.

For example :

Consider a spellchecking and correcting system of a word processor.  The user requirements can be given in natural language as.

1. The system should posses a traditional word dictionary and user supplied dictionary.  It should provide a user-activated facility which checks the spelling or words in the document against spellings in the system dictionary and user-supplied dictionaries.


2. When a word is found in the document which is not given in the dictionary, then the system suggest 10 alternative words.  These alternative words should be based on a match between the word found and corresponding words in the dictionaries.


3. When a word is found in the document which is not in any dictionary, the system should propose following options to user :

1)      Ignore the corresponding instance of the word and go to next sentence.

2)      Ignore all instances of the word.

3)      Replace the word with a suggested word from the dictionary.

4)      Edit the word with user-supplied text. 

5)      Ignore the instance and add the word to a specified dictionary.