Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 2013, 6, 416-425
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jsea.2013.68051 Published Online August 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jsea)
Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive
Informative Systems
Sylviane Levy1, Fernando Gamboa2
1Dirección General de Cómputo y de Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
México D.F., México; 2Centro de Ciencias Aplicadas y Desarrollo Tecnológico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
México D.F., México.
Received May 28th, 2013; revised June 30th, 2013; accepted July 8th, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Sylviane Levy, Fernando Gamboa. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attri-
bution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
ABSTRACT
Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems (MIIS) are software applications resulting from the convergence of multi-
ples technologies such as audiovisual, computing and communication. They aim to transmit information to a large, di-
verse and dispersed public. As with other mass media, the fulfillment of MIIS goals depends largely on the quality of
communication between the system and end users. Therefore, those systems should be developed in order to ensure that
this quality requirement is satisfied. If MIIS are constructed according to usual software engineering practices, the ana-
lysis discipline of the d evelopment process includes requirements iden tification and specification; however, these tech-
niques are focused on functional requirements, and they do not give much importance to non-functional requirements.
In this paper, we propose a development process based on the production of videogames which has two diff erent phases:
preproduction and production. The first phase, corresponding to requirements identification, derives into the conce pt of
system. In order to translate this concept in to a sp ecification, we propose the use of new communicational attributes and
a MIIS metamodel. The establishment of MIIS non-functional specification is the result of analyzing class diagrams
through quality attributes. In order to evaluate if the specifications are responding to communicational attributes, a
functional prototyp e is built and evaluated with end users. The proposed methodo logy is applied to a real case study.
Keywords: Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems; Multimedia; Quality Model in Use; Quality Requirements;
Metamodeling
1. Introduction
Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems (MIIS) are
software systems that result from the convergence of
multiple technologies, for example the combination of
computational, audiovisual and communication techno-
logies. The purpose of MIIS is to diffuse information to a
large, dispersed, diverse, and non-captive public. An ex-
ample of a MIIS would be a website whose goal is to
transmit information, such as an online newspaper or a
cultural website. A kiosk in a museum, cultural CD-
ROMS, and many applications for mobile phones and
tablets can also be considered as MIIS.
As with other communication media, such as cinema
and television, whether or not the MIIS fulfill its goals
depends largely on quality characteristics related to the
communication between the transmitter and the receiver.
In this case, the qualities of communication between the
MIIS and its final users are essential, and the success of
the MIIS depends on the user finding these systems at-
tractive, interesting, informative, an d credible. However,
these quality requirements are not included among the
attributes of quality models used fo r software such as the
ISO/IEC norm 25010 [1] and its predecessor ISO/IEC
9126.
These types of non-functional requirements are diffi-
cult to translate into specifications. But if they are not
satisfied, the user can discard the application with the
same freedom that she or he can change the channel of
the television or leave a cinema when the film is disap-
pointing, rendering the system essentially useless.
Existing models of quality barely consider these char-
acteristics. Software applications traditionally help cap-
tive users to solve concrete problems, and there is no
need for retaining their interest. The MIIS’s user, on the

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 417
other hand, is generally non-captive since its acquisition
of information is a voluntary decision and not bound by
the necessity to use the system.
Traditionally, the specifications of a computer system
are guided by functional requirements expressed by cli-
ents and final users. In the MIIS’ case, where the objec-
tive is to transmit information, the users cannot easily
decide on the content of the application and therefore
there is a need of intervention from experts for deciding
what information should be contained in the system [2].
The above observations explain why it is necessary to
explore new methodologies aiming to establish the speci-
fications of a MIIS, and to define new quality require-
ments more appropriate to evaluate the quality of the
transmission of knowledge to non-captive users.
This study proposes a methodology for MIIS specifi-
cation based on: 1) A communicational analysis that al-
lows the definition of a creative concept of the system to
be built; 2) A metamodel of MIIS to be used for design-
ing the system; 3) New characteristics that enrich the
model of quality in use ISO/IEC 25010, in order to ana-
lyze MIIS communicational aspects; and 4) A prototyp-
ing-centered methodology for designing a MIIS.
This paper is organized as followed: Section 2 summa-
rizes existing methodologies which served as background
of our work; Section 3 presents Multimedia Interactive
Informative Systems (MIIS) as a metamodel; Section 4
defines the expected qualities for MIIS; the proposed
methodology is developed in Section 5 and a case study
is detailed in Section 6; Section 7 is the conclusion.
2. Background
Studies covering the development of multimedia have
split along two general lines:
The first line derives from the field of communication,
where the authors concentrate on the creation of a new
commu nicatio n med ium . These w orks are based on a dev-
elopment process strongly influenced by film and video
making.
The second line comes from the design and develop-
ment of c onv ent ional so ftwa re. I t foc uses on R equi rem ent
Engineering and on the resolution of problems linked to
the handling of multiple media, but leaves aside the
communicational problem.
2.1. Communication Perspective
In general, the works coming from the field of commu-
nication studies are prepared as scholarly manuals and
they base their conceptual and development methodology
on other media, such as cinema or television.
One of the most mature of these works is by Fried-
mann, who proposes a process of analysis and script-
writing for different means of communication, called
visual media, which include traditional media but also
websites, educational and training software applications,
information kiosks, and videogames [3]. Friedmann es-
tablishes an analytical and creative process whose goal is
to yield a creative concept of visual media on the basis of
which the script is written.
Nonetheless, even in the case of interactive systems,
the screenplay is written in a style strongly influenced by
the cinematographic industry, given that: “Books, movies,
television, theatre—all imply the creation of specific do-
cuments that establish formats that the interactive Indus-
try does not have” [3]. In particular, Friedmann does not
specify how the script can be converted to the specifica-
tions of a system that must be understood, interpreted,
and developed by a multidisciplinary team of designers,
communication specialists, and programmers, among
others.
This study will use Friedmann’s framework to analyze
the domain of MIIS’ problem and to propose a creative
concept to be translated into specifications of system.
2.2. Software Perspective
In the field of computing, there are few studies which
consider the transmission of information as the main
purpose of the system. Among the most original studies
are those from Bolchini [4], who proposed the term “in-
fosuasive” to define Web applications that are both in-
formative and persuasive, such as those applications that
“aim at supporting knowledge needs and have also the
(declared or not declared) goal of influencing user’s opi-
nions, attitudes and behaviors.” Bolchini based his work
on the Objective-Centered Design Cooper’s methodology
[5], centering his analysis on the need to meet the objec-
tives of different users and introducing communication
objectives as elements of analysis for the design of Web
applications. One of his co ntributions was to id entify the
need to carry out and to document a communication ana-
lysis to build website requirements, such as content, lay-
out, architecture, and navig at i on.
Another work which considers new types of require-
ments is offered by Davide Callele [6], who studies video
games in particular and has introduced the concept of
emotional requirements wh ich analyze and document the
emotions to be transmitted to the users/players. On the
basis of these emotional requirements, he establishes
functional and non-functional requirements. The concepts
presented in these works will allow us to analyze the
requirements of MIIS through qualitative requirements
such as attractiveness, interestingness, informativeness
and credibility.
There are a variety of techniques to elicit requirements
[7], which generally involve the system’s end-users and
stakeholders. But there are very few studies that consider

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 418
requirements not elicited by users or stakeholders, as
needed in the case of MIIS.
Among these studies, a combination of production in-
spired by movie realization and software engineering is
used in video game industry [8]. The development proc-
ess of a video game is composed by two phases: prepro-
duction and production. The first one results in a Game
Design Document (GDD), which is a creative work writ-
ten by game designers. The second one is a traditional
development process. Transition between both phases is
particularly difficult since it is necessary to translate the
GDD into a specification: “Despite the recognized need,
we have discovered no evidence that a process for man-
aging the transition from preproduction to production has
been proposed (recognizing that such a process may exist
within an organization but remain unreported in the lit-
erature) [8].”
In this work, we will follow the video game develop-
ment process proposed by [8]: the first phase, the concept
of MIIS will be created and, in order to move from con-
cept to a traditional software engineering process, we
propose the use of a metamodel to represent the system
and derive its specifications through the analysis of qua-
lity attributes.
3. Multimedia Interactive Informative
Systems (MIIS)
3.1. Definition
In 1999, Burleson [9] defines a “multimedia system to be
a computer-based communication system which delivers
heterogeneous and compressed/coded/encrypted content
(text, audio, video, graphics) from a source or storage de-
vice and transfers it over a heterogeneous channel (Inter-
net, wireless network, local area network) to an end-user
while maintaining perceptual integ rity”. In this definition,
Burleson points out the communicational character of
multimedia system as well as the result of multiples tech-
nologies as computing, communication and audiovisual.
Other authors have tried to define those systems. For
example in [10], multimedia is defined as “a computer
system with the capacity to deliver visual and audio in-
formation to a user interactively” and Guéneau describes
a digital creative project through three components: vis-
ualization, interactivity and content [11].
Based on these definitions, we define a MIIS as an in-
formative communication system, resulting from the con-
vergence of multiples technolo gies, delivering some con-
tent to an end user in a multimedia environment and in-
teractively.
In this definition, we point out the communicational
and informative character of MIIS as well as its compo-
nents.
3.2. MIIS Metamodel
Based on this definition, we propose a metamodel to de-
scribe a MIIS. The Metamodel is composed by four main
metaclasses, WINDOW, CONTENT, SCENE and DATA
(Figure 1).
WINDOW metaclass is an abstract class composed by
SCENE and CONTENT metaclasses. Both of them are
composed by several media, represented by the MEDIA
metaclass. This metaclass is associated with INTERAC-
TION saying that media are to be interactive. Finally, the
metaclass DATA contains users and system data.
 Window represents what is between the system and
users, what users see, hear and interact with. They are
linked between them with a *..* multiplicity which
indicates that one window is linked with many win-
dows and many windows are linked to 1, allowing
navigation all over the system. It is composed by two
metaclasses:
1) Content represents the information to be transmit-
ted as well as the way to be delivered. It is displayed by
different media, which could be simply audiovisual or
also interactive.
2) Scene represents all the audiovisual elements of the
interfaces that have the purpose of involving the user into
the application.
 Data contains all information which is not visible by
users but necessary for MIIS as system and users da-
tabases.
 Media can represent information, contextualize con-
tent, have an esthetic, emotional, or functional pur-
Figure 1. MIIS metamodel.

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 419
pose. They can be interactive or just audiovisual ele-
ments. Media are made by classes of text, images,
sounds, videos, 2D an d 3D animations.
It is important to point out that, on the basis of these
concepts, Interactive media are media with a code asso-
ciated which allows any kind of action, particularly us-
ers’ interaction with system.
4. MIIS Quality
4.1. Quality of a Software
Among the models of quality that are most often used to
evaluate software is the standard ISO 25010 which sub-
stitutes the ISO 9126 standard for the models of quality
of software [1] and ISO 25012 [14] for the quality of
data.
The ISO/IEC 25010 stand a rd [1] defines Softwar e Pro-
duct Quality and In Use Quality Models, which have
proven to be useful tools to specify Non Functional Re-
quirements (NFR). According to ISO/IEC 25010:
 A product quality model is composed of eight char-
acteristics (which are further subdivided into subchar-
acteristics) related to static properties of software and
dynamic properties of the computer system. The mo-
del is applicable to both computer systems and soft-
ware products.
 A q uality in use model is composed of five character-
istics (some of which are further subdivided into sub-
characteristics) related to the outcome of interaction
when a product is used in a particular context of use.
This system model is applicable to both computer
systems and software products in use.
The characteristics of the product quality are consid-
ered during the development of the system (Internal/Ex-
ternal quality). Internal quality is specified and measured
during the development process and external quality is
observed while testing the not yet delivered system. The
Internal/External qua lity is specified and measured by th e
developers’ team; they affect the quality in-use charac-
teristics, which are directly perceived by the end user. It
means that during the construction of the system, the In-
ternal/External quality must be considered to build the
desired quality into the final system.
The quality of a system is defined as the degree to
which the system satisfies the stated and implied n eeds of
its various stakeholders, and thus provides value [1].
Quality models represent th ese needs; they categorize th e
product qu ality into cha ra c teristics, which can be further
subdivided into sub-characteristics; these can be refined
until the quality attributes or measurable elements are
obtained. The ISO/IEC 25010 standard offers different
quality models for the software product; in this context,
we are interested in Quality in Use Model.
Traditionally, requirements of a computer system are
established based on an analysis of the needs expressed
by clients and/or final users. In the case of MIIS, where
the objective is to transmit information, the clients, for
example academics, teachers or art institute managers,
cannot easily decide on the content of the application and
its treatment.
This task therefore requires the participation of experts
in communication and information content, since they
must decide what information should be contained in the
system [2].
In this paper, the modeling of the quality of MIISs is
proposed, as a necessary step towards a systematic de-
sign of these systems involving the knowledge of the ex-
pert on the domain. The main goal of th is work is to pre-
sent the MIIS quality modeling by adapting the ISO/IEC
25010 quality model to specify the communicative qual-
ity of MIISs. The results can be used to improve the re-
quirements elicitation discipline in the development pro-
cess of MIIS.
4.2. Quality of a MIIS
As we can observe, among the characteristics of the qua-
lity in use model, none of them address the communica-
tional aspects of the software, which express the quality
of the communication established with the user. In other
informative communication media such as documentary
film, many studies have analyzed how to conceive and
qualify a good film. In [12], the author describes for ex-
ample some of the most important characteristics of a
documentary. In author’s opinion, the first objective of a
production is to catch attention and, once audience’s
attention is caught, to maintain it until the end. To at-
tract this attention, it is necessary to implicate the viewer
from a cognitive and also from an emotional point of
view: “Implication is possible when audience feels that
the experiences that a documentary is transmitting are
authentic” [12].
From those ideas, we propose to introduce 4 new sub-
characteristics: attractiven ess, interestingness, informa-
tiveness, and credibility.
4.2.1. Defi ni ti on of Communicational Quality
Characteristic
If a system of quality is to be characterized by its level of
communication, the model of quality in use described in
[1] should be complemented by a new characteristic,
whose goal is to qualify the quality of communication be-
tween the system and its users. Four sub-characteristics
are introduced as follow:
 Attractiveness is the capacity of the system or its com-
ponents to catch and maintain user’s attention for a
minimum time in a specific context.
 Interestingness is the capacity of the system or its
components to maintain user’s attention on informa-

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 420
tion that is being tran smitted .
 Informativeness is the capacity of the system or its
components to inform the user with relevance, under-
standing and structured way, in a specific context.
 Credibility is the capacity of the system or its com-
ponents to allow the user to feel involved in a credible
and authentic environment in a specific context. It al-
lows the user to believe in the veracity of the trans-
mitted information.
4.2.2. Evaluation of Communicational Quality
Characteristic
The evaluation of the characteristic of communication of a
MIIS is generally used to assess the impact of its attributes
on the user before a complete (and expensive) develop-
ment of the application . Typically, this evaluatio n is done
through a prototype which includes the most important
windows responsible of assuming the communicational
attributes.
In [13] the author affirms that “Assessment methods
can be divided into two groups: inspection methods and
test. Inspection methods are used in order to test compli-
ance of a system with the standards and guidelines for
quality assurance”. Among these standards, heuristic
evaluation is the most often used by experts to determine
if the 10 heuristics proposed by Jakob Nielsen [14] are
complied.
In this work, we are interested about th e second group,
which consists of test methods used with end-users to
obtain feedback on whether the system meets the pre-
defined quality attributes or not. Th e most common form
of user testing is the use of checklists or questionnaires.
Checklists can include: the importance of sources,
grammar and orthography, correctness, relevance and ac-
tuality of information.
Questionnaires allow to measure subjective attributes
as “Attractiveness, Interestingness, Informativeness” or
Credibility through qualitativ e criteria. Some quantitative
criteria may be defined. They include: time spent by us-
ers, number of windows visited and number of media
displayed or information retained by users.
In Table 1, some examples of criteria are shown, re-
lated with communicability attributes and, as suggested
in [15], in order to evaluate the proposed set of attributes,
we propose so me metric s.
4.2.3. Communicational Metrics
Communicational metrics measure the extent to which
users feel if the product is attractive, interesting, and
credible and transmit information efficiently. Metrics are
used to evaluate each attribute. A balanced project should
meet the four attributes in the same proportion. In Table
2, we define some metrics that will be used in the case
study.
Table 1. Examples of evaluation criteria.
Quality
attributes Checklist Quantitative criteria Qualitative criteria
Attractiveness •Total time spent
by users •Curiosity about system
•Number of
windows visited •Interest to go on
•Number of
media displayed
by users
Interestingness •Time spent in
each Window
•Information
retained by users
•Interest about
content
•Information
relevance •Information understanding
Informativeness •Information
actuality •Key information retained by users
•References •Credibility
about scenes
•Source of
information
•Credibility
about
information
•Correctness of
information
Credibility
•Grammar and
orthography
To achieve the required quality of communication, the
components of the system must be designed with that in-
tention in mind. In other words, they must be the product
of a requirements analysis that in clu des the ap plication of
communicational purpose.
5. MIIS Development Process
As mentioned before, we will follow the development
process used in video game industry, which has two dif-
ferent phases: preproduction and production. The first
one delivers MIIS’ concept that has to be transformed
into specification which therefore allows, a multidisci-
plinary team to develop it. The second is a traditional
software process, generally iterative and incremental, re-
sulting in a MIIS. In this work, we are interested in the
transition from preproduction to production.
MIIS’ concept is the product of a communicational
analysis and a creative process.
5.1. Communicational Analysis
Communicational analysis is based upon the different
elements, which compose the domain of the problem.
Friedmann [3] suggests that, in order to write the script-
ing of a visual media, it is necessary to define the com-
munication problem, the target audience, the objective
and the content.

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 421
Table 2. Some communicational metrics.
Metric name Purpose of the metric Method of applicationMeasurement Interpretation


XAin

Ai = response to a question
Attribute
questionnaire How (attractive, interesting, credible)
is a Window for the user? User test
n = number of responses
The larger the better


.XTitn

Ti = time spent by users in a Window X > 1, is above expectation
t = expected time X < 1, is under expectation
Window time How long does the user spend in each
Window? User test
n = number of users
This creative concep t should be translated or specified
in terms of an instance of the MIIS metamodel.
The definition of communication problem tries to fo-
cus on what is the need to produce a MIIS: “Our axiom
states that every program is a response to a communica-
tion problem. If ther e were no ne ed to show, tell, explain,
attract, entertain, seduce, delight, or distract an audience,
there would be no reason to make a program and, there-
fore, no need to write a script” [3].
5.3. MIIS Model
Creative concept should be translated in terms of media
and interactive media. The role of MIIS metamodel, just
as DSL (Domain Specific Language), is to guide this
process:
The definition of target audience tries to sharpen a
public, even if it is potentially wide, diverse and dis-
persed. There is always a target public which allows fo-
cusing on a specific age, gender, cultural level, national-
ity, socioeconomic level, etc.
The first step is to define the different windows and
navigation map, which shows the way they are linked.
The second step, defines scene and content for each
window: scenes represent all the audiovisual components
and content contain the information to be transmitted. In
order to insure that quality characteristics are considered
by the MIIS model, it is necessary to decide which com-
ponent will take in charge each one of them.
The objective is closely associated to the communica-
tion problem: it states what problem the MIIS will help.
Generally, the objective is easy to see. The difficulty is
how to reach it.
The content, as part of the communication analysis,
should include the main themes to be treated. Their in-
vestigation and documentation is part of the following
process.
5.4. MIIS Specification
According to [16], “Quality is a feature that is ‘built’ in an
information system and not added afterwards.” In this
sense, if we accept that a MIIS should be attractive, in-
teresting, informative and credible, in o rder to be used and
appreciated by its end users, the designer must be able to
incorporate these goals into the MIIS.
5.2. Creative Concept
The analysis of those elements should lead to define a
strategy: On Friedmann’s opinion [3], “to write a suc-
cessful script that solve the communication problem, we
need to figure out how to achieve the objective, reach the
target audience, and suggest the content that leads to ef-
fective communication”. This strategy could be one, al-
ready used in other successful systems with similar pro-
blem domain, or can be an original one.
It is then necessary to decide which window will as-
sume one or more attributes and specify how media as-
sume the corresponding attribute, establishing specifica-
tions for each of them. In this way, it is possible to trace
problems through evaluations during the process of pro-
duction.
As a result of choosing a strategy, it is applied to a
specific problem domain, and inventing a creative con-
cept. 6. Case Study
In order to illustrate the above, we will apply the meth-
odology to a case study: “Pierre y la Coatlicue”, a learn-
ing system for Spanish language and Mexican culture.
The firs t step is th en to carry o ut a commu nicatio nal ana-
lysis, as suggested by Friedmann [3].
The purpose of the creative concept is to “solve the
communication problem, reach the target audience, achi-
eve the objective, embody the strategy, provide the con-
tent of the application, and show how it will work” [3]. It
also should respond to the quality ch aracteristics stated in
the extended quality model, specifying how the system
will be attractive, interesting, informative and credible to
end users.
6.1. Communicational Analysis
In the National University Center fo r Foreigners in Mex-

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 422
ico, st ude n ts m ust f ol lo w cl as se s o n Spa ni s h and M exi ca n
culture. If the students are captive in the study of the
language, they are not necessarily captive in the study of
Mexican culture since their priority is generally to learn
Spanish and not in learning Mexican culture. Besides,
teachers on cultural issues are not always familiar with
teaching foreigners and are having problem in commu-
nicating with them.
Therefore, the main target is foreign students at Na-
tional University and their teachers. Since the system will
be on line, it can be used by everybody interested in
learning Spanish and Mexican culture.
The objective of the system is then how to motivate
foreign students to learn and understand Mexican culture
while learning Spanish.
Information requirements are provided by professors
and are composed by texts with exercises and grammar
texts.
6.2. Creative Concept
The strategy selected is the use of narrative. Telling a
story has the virtue o f motivating the user to know what is
going to happen next, and therefore maintains his or her
interest in the application [17,18].
On the basis of this strategy the fo llowing concep t was
proposed:
Tell a story through several stages in which the main
character is a foreigner visiting Mexico City with whom
students can identify and feel empathy towards. The in-
citing element of the story is the search for the Coatlicue,
an Aztec monolith, in different locations of Mexico City.
The story must include elements of mystery and plots to
maintain the interest of the user and incite him/her to
pursue. A set of virtual resources, which young people
are familiar with, will be offered for transmitting the in-
formation, such as a mobile phone to communicate with
family and experts, a camera, a GPS to move around the
city, a music player, interactive books, and a Facebook
link to communicate with other students. The credibility
of the information is established by the creation of a re-
alistic context and characters.
This concept sp ecifies the manner in which the system
will respond to questions such as: how to attract and
maintain interest, and how to inform and involve the
user.
6.3. Pierre y la Coatlicue Model
In order to model Pierre y la Coatlicue MIIS, the first step
consists in selecting the different windows of applicatio n:
Registration, different location s visited by Pierre, Mob ile
phone composed by Calls, Camera, GPS and Music
Player, Spanish and History Books and a Field Diary.
In the second step, each window is modeled as an in-
stantiation of MIIS metamodel, deciding which media
compose his scene and content. This model can be rep-
resented through a table instead of diagram. In Table 3,
First location (Zócalo) is represented as an example.
Zócalo location is composed, as all windows, by scene
and content, which are composed by different media.
This model allows graphic designer to propose a first
sketch (Figure 2). In order to apply a graphical style to
the sketch, non function al requirements specification s are
needed.
6.4. Pierre y la Coatlicue Requirements
Specification
In order to traduce the concept into specifications, it is
necessary to decide in first place, which Windows would
assume communicational attributes. In Figure 3, those
attributes are associated to each window.
Table 3. Zócalo model.
Zócalo Scene Content
Texts Localization
Images
 Zócalo
 Cars
 Walkers
 Typical persons
Audio  Cars  Bus
 Zócalo sounds
Dialogue between
Pierre and walker
Animations  Sky
 Pierre
Pierre arriving at
Zócalo, discovering
Coatlicue plate and
talking with walker
Interactive Media
Buttons:
 Display animation
 Ticket
 Menu
 Exit
Figure 2. Zocalo sketch.

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 423
Figure 3. Communicational attributes assumed by each window.
As an example, in Table 4, we established specifica-
tions requirements for window Zócalo, the first location
Pierre visits.
6.5. Evaluation of Communicational Attributes
In order to evaluate if the specifications are responding to
communicational attributes, a functional prototype is
built, following the process suggested in [19], with the
main windows and media that will allow evalu ating them.
Since it is not possible to evaluate every attribute in a
prototype, our main interest is to evaluate student’s at-
tractiveness, interest and comprehensiveness of the story.
Books and interactive activities were not evaluated as
they are part of teacher’s requirements, and based on
their pedagogi cal theory and experience.
In Ta ble 4, we synthesized the prototype that we built,
composed by windows and media that should allow car-
rying on the evaluation. Criteria of evaluation proposed
in Table 1, are then associated to each Window and ap-
plied to questionnaires in order to evaluate communica-
bility attributes (Table 5).
Attractiveness questions are used to assess student’s
interest to go forward and imagin e the rest of the story. If
the story is too predictable, there is less interest to go
forward.
Interestingness questions are asked in order to assess
student’s interest about story and information transmitted
Credibility questions are used in order to assess stu-
dent’s credibility of characters, scenes and story situa-
tion.
Informativeness questions are used in order to assess
student’s understanding of information contained in the
story.
Time spent by users in each Window, is compared to
the minimum time to navigate around, established by us.
In order to carry on the evaluation, teachers used the
system in their classroom and after, the students were
asked to freely use the system, as they were home. All
the session was recorded through “Camtasia” and, then
students responded to the questionnaire. They were asked
for each window to give a mark between 1 and 5 (5 is the
highest) and a comment, and the system recorded the
time spent on each of them. Table 6 shows the results of
these questionnaires.
6.6. Interpretation and Proposals
Zócalo window is composed by the introduction anima-
tion and the main scene with Pierre. Attractiveness eva-
luation showed that students were interested about story.
However, the ending was too easily predictable: they all
imagine the same continuation and ending. We proposed
then to complicate the story with sub-stories for main-
taining student’s interest. Pierre character was not credi-
ble enough, so we presented to the public hem many
other proposals. One of them got 85% o f acceptation.
Calls window is composed by videos which represent
dialogues between Pierre and other characters of the
story. Time spent on playing videos was under our ex-
pectation, mostly because they were too long and not
enough interesting. Basic information was clearly under-
stood, meaning that the mode of transmission was right.
Diary window is composed by images and texts where
Pierre explains his quest. Surprisingly for us, time spent
by students was over our expectation, mostly because

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 424
Table 4. Zócalo requirements specifications.
Communicability attributes Content Scene
Attractive Story Information
• Travelling around Zócalo in order to
recognize it, ending at Coatlicue
commemorative plate location
Attractiveness • Pierre finds Coatlicue commemorative
plate and wonders who she is and where
is she • Explanation of who is Coatlicue
• Include typical persons. When user
clicks on them, they talk
• Include references and source s • Pierre is represented in a realistic style
and students should identify with him
• Include original texts • Zócalo is sufficiently realistic for students being able to recognize it, in the
same style as Pierre
• Include a moving s k y, cars and persons
• Zócalo sounds
Credibility • Informati o n must be true and ver ified
by experts
• Buttons should use metapho rs
Table 5. Main components of prototype to be evaluated.
Window Media Communicability Metric Expected Time
Dialogue Attractiveness questionnaire
Pierre’s Zócalo
Animation Credibility questionnaire --
Dialogue Interestingness questionnaire
Calls Dialogue Informativeness questionnaire 1 min.30
Interactive images Interestingness questionnaire
Diary Texts Informativeness questionnaire 30 sec.
Photos Images of the Zócalo and surrounding Interestingness questionnaire 1 min.
GPS Map of the city Interestingness questionnaire 30 sec.
Table 6. Pierre y la coatlicue evaluation.
Attractive
(1 - 5)* Interesting
(1 - 5)* Informative CredibleTime**
Zócalo 3.5 -- -- 3 --
Calls -- 3.7 5 -- 0.5
Diary -- 4.2 4.1 -- 1.5
Photos -- 2.5 -- -- 0.7
GPS -- 3 -- -- 1.4
*is the best; **>1 is above expe ctation, <1 is under ex pectation.
texts were very simple and allowed students to under-
stand quickly all information about story.
Photos window did not interest stu dents: they were too
small and subjects were not original. We decided to
enlarge them and use more original images.
GPS window is composed by the image representing
city map. Time spent by students was over our expecta-
tion, mostly because they tried to click over all places.
However, map was not interactive so it seemed necessary
to make it interactive, allowing students to visit virtually
the city.
7. Conclusions
In this pa per, we intro d uced a m et hodology f or t he design
of a MIIS, taking into account its communicational as-
pects. In order to guide the analyst during the specification
of the system, we defined a MIIS metamodel that can be
used as a domain specific language (DSL). To be able to
precisely characterize the MIIS, we complemented the
ISO/IEC 25010 model of quality in use with four new
quality sub-characteristics of communicability: attrac-
tiveness, interestingness, informativen ess and credibility.
In order to elicit the requirements of a MIIS, with out the
benefit of the users’ a nd stakeho lders’ in put, we sugges ted

Quality Requirements for Multimedia Interactive Informative Systems 425
the realization of a communicational analysis which de-
rives into the creative concept of MIIS. To deduce the
system specification from the creative concept, this has
been expressed as a m odel, ins tance of the propose d MIIS
metamodel and then analyzed it by means of our com-
munication attributes. We have shown with a case study
that it is possible to establish the system’s specifications
quality by analyzing each instance of the class Window of
the model through its quality attrib utes.
Having used it in all along our real case study, we
have experienced using the MIIS’ metamodel, very use-
ful to describe the system and analyze its quality looking
at each of the Windows instances which are all composed
of Content an d Scene. Communicability attr ibutes enab le
us to characterize exactly our required quality in use
properties and then allow use to test that the system actu-
ally meets users’ expectations. This work opens new pos-
sibilities in taking communicatio n aspects into con sidera-
tion while designing MIIS. In particular, prototype evalu-
ation used in this work was useful in order to decide if
the windows and media defined in the system took actu-
ally correctly in charge each communicability attributes
and suggesting the way to improve them. This type of
evaluations could be performed many times during the
iterative development process, assessing how each spe-
cific Window was responding to communicability attrib-
utes, and this, before the end of the process.
The formalization of a methodology to design a MIIS
is becoming more and more indispensable since it offers
a multidisciplinary set of communication tools for the
use of professionals from very different fields, in one
hand, and allows the effective drafting of documents
guiding the developers in the other.
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