This talk was held in the 11th International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology in Coimbra, Portugal.

1. GAMIFICATION IN REQUIREMENTS
ENGINEERING: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Rodrigo Cursino, Daniel Ferreira, Maria Lencastre,
Roberta Fagundes and João Pimentel

2. AGENDA
➤ Motivation
➤ Goal
➤ Methodology
➤ Results
➤ Conclusions

3. REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
➤ It’s a key software engineering process
➤ Its aims to identify, analyze, document and validate requirements for the system to be
developed
➤ We need to have the stakeholders engaged in the subprocess activities
➤ Failures on the communication between customer/team
➤ Lack of stakeholders engagement in some of RE subprocesses

4. GAMIFICATION
➤ Definition
➤ Gamification is the use of game elements in non-game contexts.
➤ Use points or levels to increase the sales of an e-commerce web site.
➤ Goals
➤ It’s used in order to make tedious, long and repetitive tasks into something more
enjoyable and fun
➤ It’s also used to increase the users’ engagement

5. GAMIFICATION
REQUIREMENTS
ENGINEERING
➤ Understand the use of gamification within RE
➤ List some research opportunities in this fieldGOALS

6. METHODOLOGY

7. RESEARCH QUESTION
How has gamification been applied in the context of
Requirements Engineering?

8. RESEARCH QUESTION
How has gamification been applied in the context of
Requirements Engineering?
Id Research question
RQ01
What are the most applied gamification techniques and
elements in the context of RE?
RQ02
Which RE sub-processes have been targeted in existing RE
gamification proposals?
RQ03
What are the consequences of applying gamification elements
in the context of RE?
RQ04
What are the benefits, drawbacks, challenges, and lessons
learned in applying gamification for RE?

9. SEARCH STRATEGY
Search attributes Research question
Publication period January 2007 – June 2017
Digital libraries
Springer Link; ACM Digital Library; IEEE Xplore;
ScienceDirect.
Other data sources RE gamification expert
Target items
Journal papers; Conference papers; Workshop
papers; Book chapters.
Language English
Search applied to Title; Abstract; Keywords.

10. SEARCH STRING
(“requirements engineering” OR
“requirements elicitation” OR
“requirements identification” OR
“requirements analysis” OR
“requirements specification” OR
“requirements validation” OR
“requirements management” OR
“requirements verification” OR
“requirements negotiation” OR
“requirements source” OR
“requirements prioritization” OR
“requirements documentation” OR
“requirements modeling”)
(gamification OR
gamifying OR
gamify OR
“game-based” OR
“game based”)
AND
GAMIFICATION REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING

11. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIAS
➤ Duplicated studies
➤ Studies whose full text is not available
➤ Studies on which gamification is not
applied to RE
➤ Gamification is applied to RE
➤ Written in English
➤ Published between January
2007 and June 2017
INCLUSION EXCLUSION

12. STUDY SELECTION PROCEDURE

13. RESULTS

14. GENERAL
DISTRIBUTION OF STUDIES PER YEAR NUMBER OF CITATIONS PER STUDY

15. GENERAL
DISTRIBUTION OF STUDIES PER YEAR NUMBER OF CITATIONS PER STUDY

16. RQ01 - MOST APPLIED GAMIFICATION TECHNIQUES AND ELEMENTS IN RE
➤ Points, Badges and Leaderboards are the most popular
➤ 7 of 8 studies applied those elements
➤ This results is in accordance with other gamification researches (Hamari et al.,2014) and
(Deterding et al., 2011)

17. RQ01 - MOST APPLIED GAMIFICATION TECHNIQUES AND ELEMENTS IN RE
➤ One study applied 16 gamification
elements
➤ Most studies applied 2 to 5 gamification
elements
DISTRIBUTION OF THE NUMBER OF
GAMIFICATION ELEMENTS BY STUDY

18. RQ01 - MOST APPLIED GAMIFICATION TECHNIQUES AND ELEMENTS IN RE
➤ Study [A8] applied 16 gamification
elements
➤ There were some elements that were
not used
➤ It was difficult to understand the
effect of each element on the
stakeholder engagement
➤ The success of gamification heavily
depends on the choice of game
mechanics and game elements

19. RQ01 - MOST APPLIED GAMIFICATION TECHNIQUES AND ELEMENTS IN RE
➤ Study [A8] applied 16 gamification
elements
➤ There were some elements that were
not used
➤ It was difficult to understand the
effect of each element on the
stakeholder engagement
➤ The success of gamification heavily
depends on the choice of game
mechanics and game elements

20. RQ01 - MOST APPLIED GAMIFICATION TECHNIQUES AND ELEMENTS IN RE
➤ Study [A8] applied 16 gamification
elements
➤ There were some elements that were
not used
➤ It was difficult to understand the
effect of each element on the
stakeholder engagement
➤ The success of gamification heavily
depends on the choice of game
mechanics and game elements

21. RQ01 - MOST APPLIED GAMIFICATION TECHNIQUES AND ELEMENTS IN RE
➤ Study [A8] applied 16 gamification
elements
➤ There were some elements that were
not used
➤ It was difficult to understand the
effect of each element on the
stakeholder engagement
➤ The success of gamification heavily
depends on the choice of game
mechanics and game elements

22. RQ02 - SUB-PROCESSES USED IN EXISTING RE GAMIFICATION PROPOSALS
Sub-process Studies
Elicitation A1, A2, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8
Negotiation A2, A3, A4, A7
Prioritization A2, A3, A4, A7
Validation A1, A4
Specification A4

23. RQ02 - SUB-PROCESSES USED IN EXISTING RE GAMIFICATION PROPOSALS
➤ Study [A4]:
➤ Elicitation: they allows the
stakeholders to enter their needs
➤ Negotiation: the stakeholders can
reply and collaborate with needs
from other people
➤ Prioritization: They can vote,
selecting if they agree or not with
the need

24. RQ02 - SUB-PROCESSES USED IN EXISTING RE GAMIFICATION PROPOSALS
➤ Study [A4]:
➤ Elicitation: they allows the
stakeholders to enter their needs
➤ Negotiation: the stakeholders can
reply and collaborate with needs
from other people
➤ Prioritization: They can vote,
selecting if they agree or not with
the need

25. RQ02 - SUB-PROCESSES USED IN EXISTING RE GAMIFICATION PROPOSALS
➤ Study [A4]:
➤ Elicitation: they allows the
stakeholders to enter their needs
➤ Negotiation: the stakeholders can
reply and collaborate with needs
from other people
➤ Prioritization: They can vote,
selecting if they agree or not with
the need

26. RQ03 - CONSEQUENCES OF APPLYING GAMIFICATION ELEMENTS IN RE

27. RQ03 - CONSEQUENCES OF APPLYING GAMIFICATION ELEMENTS IN RE

28. RQ03 - CONSEQUENCES OF APPLYING GAMIFICATION ELEMENTS IN RE

29. RQ04 - BENEFITS & DRAWBACKS IN APPLYING GAMIFICATION FOR RE
Potential Benefits Studies
Increased stakeholder participation A4, A6, A8
Higher quality requirements A4, A6, A8
More innovative requirements A4, A6, A8
Improved communication A3
Better prioritization A5

30. RQ04 - BENEFITS & DRAWBACKS IN APPLYING GAMIFICATION FOR RE
Potential Drawbacks Studies
Reduction of honesty A2
Unbalanced prioritization (polarization) A2
Inhibited creativity A5
Poor interface A6
Disinterest in contributing A7
Shallow requirements A7

31. RQ04 - BENEFITS & DRAWBACKS IN APPLYING GAMIFICATION FOR RE
Potential Drawbacks Studies
Reduction of honesty A2
Unbalanced prioritization (polarization) A2
Inhibited creativity A5
Poor interface A6
Disinterest in contributing A7
Shallow requirements A7

32. CONCLUSIONS
➤ The use of game elements:
➤ Increased stakeholders engagement on RE activities
➤ Improved the cooperation and communication of stakeholders
➤ Lack of a systematic methodology to implement gamification in RE
➤ RE subprocesses still has some potential to be explored as gamification targets

33. FUTURE WORK
➤ Explore the reasons that lead to a low number of works in gamification within RE;
➤ Conduct studies on applying gamification in activities related do Validation and
Specification sub-processes;
➤ Explore different types of game elements.

34. GAMIFICATION IN REQUIREMENTS
ENGINEERING: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Rodrigo Cursino, Daniel Ferreira, Maria Lencastre,
Roberta Fagundes and João Pimentel