Avoiding Ambiguities in Arabic Software User Requirements

Errors in requirements elicitation cause much more expensive errors in later phases of software engineering. A major source of errors is the ambiguity of the natural languages initially used to write the user requirements. Most of the research studies in the literature have focused on ambiguity detection and correction after the user requirements are written. A better approach would be avoiding the introduction of ambiguities while the user requirements are being written to reduce time and cost. Unfortunately, this problem has been overlooked in the literature except for few research studies concerned with the English language. This paper is concerned with the Arabic language due to its complex structure and because the ambiguity of Arabic user requirements is a serious problem hindering the production of quality software in the middle east. The paper studies main sources of ambiguities in the Arabic language in addition to best practices in writing Arabic user requirements to avoid the introduction of ambiguities as suggested by interviewed Arabic software engineers or as suggested in the literature for English user requirements. Accordingly, the paper suggests a set of best practices suitable for Arabic user requirements based on both practical experience and theoretical background. Examples are provided for justification. Human subject testing and empirical evaluation have shown the effectiveness of the proposed practices.