Mapping system requirements to emotional impact: a semi-automated approach

Software has become an integral part of modern life, serving various purposes in personal, professional, and recreational domains. This research addresses the growing need for software systems that are not only functional but also emotionally resonant with users. While traditional software development focuses on functional and non-functional requirements, the emotional impact of systems on users, referred to as emotional requirements (ERs), remains underexplored. Existing research on ERs has limitations, focusing primarily on specific domains like healthcare or gaming and employing manual, data-dependent elicitation methods. This work proposes a novel and semi-automated approach to derive ERs from system requirements. The proposed methodology addresses three main concerns: (1) identifying requirements with potential emotional triggers, (2) defining a software-specific taxonomy of ERs, and (3) proposing appropriate artifacts and methodology for ER elicitation. A two-way approach is proposed for ER elicitation using formal goal modeling and generative AI. The framework leverages insights from emotional knowledge bases, user behavior patterns, and contextual analysis to systematically derive ERs from requirements. The proposed methodology is experimentally evaluated using case studies of software of different domains.