Towards quality requirements via animated formal specifications

Assuring a high quality requirements specification document involves both an early validation process and an increased level of participation. An approach and its supporting environment which combines the benefits of a formal system specification and its subsequent execution via a rapid prototype is reported. The environment assists in the construction, clarification, validation and visualisation of a formal specification. An illustrative case study demonstrates the consequences of assertions about system properties at this early stage of software development. Our approach involves the pragmatic combination of technical benefits of formal systems engineering based techniques with the context‐sensitive notions of increased participation of both developer and user stakeholders to move us closer towards a quality requirements specification document.