Towards Usable Reuse : Facilitating Reuse in Distributed User-Centric Systems

Abstract: The work presented in this report revolves around the higher levels of reuse, specifically reusing knowledge, designs and architectures. All this in the means of enhancing the initial stages of systems development projects, where an emphasis is made on common understanding between the parties involved, which can be achieved by using reuse as a technique for rapid prototyping and demonstrating possible solutions to customers and their end-users. A systematic procedure to facilitate this reuse is produced, with consideration to current practices and methodologies. At the core of the procedure is a template for system descriptions, used to describe a company's previously constructed systems in a way that makes them accessible throughout the company. The template's key necessary features are identified as enabling a collection of systems to be searched and each description to present a clear overview of what the system enables its users to do. Another key aspect of systems development and reusing knowledge, as well as systems, is the social network of the individuals at a company. By applying different theories of requirement engineering and functionality descriptions, the template shows promise in aiding system developers in their work. Additionally, a demonstration application based on the system description template is presented in order to emphasize the opportunities given by the procedure.