Identification and Specification of Hedonic Quality in User Requirements

To ensure positive User Experience (UX), engineering an interactive software product should consider Hedonic Quality (HQ). The thesis shows the difficulties of identifying HQ in user requirements and ways to mitigate them. In addition, the thesis introduces UX requirements and a new user story template that provides each information that is necessary to specify and to reliably identify HQ in user requirements.

---

Engineering an interactive software product that induces positive user experience (UX) demands that the user requirements of the product reflect pragmatic qualities (PQs), that address product functionality and usability, and hedonic qualities (HQs) that address the user's psychological well-being. Mostly, products are designed emphasizing PQs while neglecting HQs. Those overly functional products have only a small potential to induce positive UX and software engineers have to learn what satisfies users by costly trial and error. To allow for the engineering of interactive software products that induce positive UX, this thesis contributes (1) Evidence of the need for an emphasis on HQs in user requirements, (2) an understanding of the difficulties in classifying user requirements, (3) the introduction of UX requirements, (4) a software solution that mitigates the difficulties of classifying user requirements, consisting of a new user story template and a User Requirements Classification Trainer, (5) evidence of the positive impact of emphasizing HQs in user requirements on software engineering, and (6) a tool that facilitates the creation of user stories in the new user story template.