Just like paper and the 3-colour protocol: A voting interface requirements engineering case study

J. Paul Gibson, Damien MacNamara, Ken Oakley

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We report on the development of a novel electronic vote machine interface, with emphasis on the requirements engineering process. In particular, we review how we followed an operational prototyping approach in order to gain a better understanding of requirements in an incremental fashion. Our most interesting observations are concerned with the evolution of our most fundamental requirement: that the voting process followed by the voter should be just like paper. We comment on how the weakening of this requirement was deemed necessary by the addition of other requirements that were identified during our prototype evaluation. This weakening was minimized through the specification of a passive voting protocol that provides feedback to voters without obliging them to follow a voting process any different from that which is normally done using a traditional paper vote. The protocol is based on a simple 3-state machine where we naturally represent the states using the familiar traffic light colour scheme: thus the interaction between voter and interface became known as the three colour protocol.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProc. of 2011 Int. Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Electronic Voting Systems, REVOTE 2011 - In Conjunction with the 19th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference 2011, RE 2011
Pages66-75
Number of pages10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Event2011 International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Electronic Voting Systems, REVOTE 2011 - In Conjunction with the 19th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference 2011, RE 2011 - Trento, Italy
Duration: 29 Aug 201129 Aug 2011

Publication series

NameProc. of 2011 Int. Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Electronic Voting Systems, REVOTE 2011 - In Conjunction with the 19th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference 2011, RE 2011

Conference

Conference2011 International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Electronic Voting Systems, REVOTE 2011 - In Conjunction with the 19th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference 2011, RE 2011
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityTrento
Period29/08/1129/08/11

Keywords

  • evolution
  • prototyping
  • requirements
  • validation

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