Conceptual models enjoy an increasing attention amongst practitioners for systematizing the analysis and design of information systems. Requirements models in particular allow us to concisely represent complex situations and utilize their formality to reason about our problem and to automate the generation of design and implementation artifacts. Above all, a model is supposed to be a communication artifact, something that people need to comprehend and work with. If they cannot understand the model we may as well just not build it.

So what can we do with requirements models? Can we use them to understand and explore the problem at hand?  Do they inspire us come up with new ideas and solutions? Do they help us make decisions? In this research, we experimentally attempt to find answers to those questions. (more…)