Introduction to this Special Issue on ªScenario-Based System Developmentº Scenarios are informal narrative descriptions. They are stories about human activity. They have long been used in the humanities and the social sciences to describe and to analyze human behaviorÐin folktales and myths, in accounts of dreams and rituals, in vignettes of rational economics and the Cold War, to name a few.
Scenario descriptions of user interactions are now widely employed in the design and development of computer systems and applications (e.g. Weidenhaupt et al. (1998)). For example, scenarios are used in strategic management to concretize the complex uncertainties that inhere in planning for alternative futures, and to render envisioned futures more vivid and auditable. Scenarios are used in requirements engineering to uncover hidden requirements and tradeoffs, to verify and validate requirements, and to integrate analysis of functional and nonfunctional requirements. Scenarios are used in human± computer interaction to rapidly and inexpensively prototype and assess user tasks, to conduct analysis and design in a vocabulary that permits end-user participation, and to provide an orienting design representation couched in the actions and experiences of the people who will ultimately use the technology.
The four papers in this special issue come from a mini-track entitled ªScenario-Based System Development,º organized within the Emerging Technologies Track of the thirtysecond Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS), Maui, HI, January 5±8, 1998. This was a wonderful half-day session; Susanne Bùdker's contribution won the best paper award for the Emerging Technologies track of HICSS.
The call for participation in the mini-track announced the goal of bringing together researchers in strategic management, requirements engineering, and human±computer interaction to further the establishment of broader and more effective engineering practices in scenario-based system development. I believe the set of papers presented here contribute to the achievement of this goal.
The ®rst paper, ªFive Reasons for Scenario-Based Designº is written by myself. This paper is a survey of rationale for scenario-based methods, emphasizing how scenarios encourage people to see systems as tools for human activity. The paper argues that scenario representations address ®ve key technical challenges in design. Susanne Bùdker's paper ªScenarios in user-centred designÐsetting the stage for re¯ection and actionº analyzes real examples of the use of scenarios. Her cases illustrate how scenarios can address con¯icts between re¯ection and action, between typical and critical