Effective communication between stakeholders and software developers is essential for building software that truly meets users’ needs. When requirements are misunderstood, the final solution may differ from what stakeholders expected, leading to misalignment, rework, and reduced satisfaction.
This challenge is especially important in domains such as digital health, where software must respond to complex needs and support real-world healthcare processes.
To address this problem, the research behind MARPaHealth explores how software requirement patterns can support more effective requirements specification. Requirement patterns make it possible to reuse documented, experience-based knowledge when defining software requirements, helping teams produce clearer and more consistent specifications.
However, despite their potential, requirement patterns are still not widely adopted in industry. Existing studies show that this is partly due to the lack of appropriate tools and the limited scalability of current solutions.
As part of our work, we presented LEMON, a software requirements tool designed to assist requirements specification using reusable and documented requirement patterns.
The tool & demonstration paper introduces the first version of the LEMON architecture and presents a prototype showing how its components can support requirements specification in practice. The demonstration is illustrated through a use case in the context of digital health software development.
LEMON aims to make requirement patterns easier to use, adapt, and integrate into software development processes. By supporting practitioners during requirements specification, the tool contributes to reducing misunderstandings and improving alignment between stakeholders and development teams.
The work also reflects on the challenges and opportunities for increasing the industrial adoption of LEMON. These insights are informed by practitioners’ feedback gathered through an online survey, helping us identify the next research and development steps.
At MARPaHealth, we see LEMON as an important step toward more systematic, reusable, and collaborative software requirements engineering for digital health solutions.