Form for Requirements Ambiguity Assessment

Assessment Questions

1.1. Dimension: Logical relationship (necessity and/or sufficiency)

What is the logical intention between the condition and the consequence?

1.2. Dimension: Temporal relationship

When should the consequence occur in relation to the condition?

1.3. Logical consistency

What do you expect to happen if...?

If the condition ... occurs, should the action ... occur?

If the condition ... does NOT occur, should the action ... occur?

General Ambiguities Assessment

2. Lexical ambiguity

Words with multiple meanings

Could any word or phrase in the requirement have more than one meaning in the context of the system?

Example: adequate, appropriate, fast, soon, efficient, optimal, perfect, tolerant, sufficient, acceptable, reasonable, safe, reliable, flexible, adaptable, economical, cheap, friendly, understandable, usable, good, nice

3. Syntactic ambiguity

Confusing sentence or paragraph structure

Can the sentence be understood in more than one grammatically valid way?

Example: "The system must validate and send the form to the server with authentication" What has authentication: the server or the form?

4. Referential ambiguity

Imprecise pronouns or nouns

Are there pronouns, adjectives or references whose identity is not clear?

Example: he, she, his, her, its, their, you, this, that, those, some, none, any, each, thing, object, situation, element, resource, said.

5. Ambiguity due to vague quantifiers / imprecise language

Vague expressions without concrete definition

Are general quantifiers or vague phrases used without concrete definition?

Example: few, many, several, some, various, a lot, most, any, the majority, a minority, often, generally, occasionally, almost always

6. Ambiguity due to passive voice

Omission of the semantic agent

Are there sentences in which it is not specified who performs the action?

Example: "The file will be deleted" → by whom?

7. Ambiguity due to incomplete or omitted context

Missing conditions, exceptions or necessary values

Are conditions, exceptions or values necessary to fully understand the expected behavior missing?

Example: "The system must send an alert when there is risk" → What is risk? How is it measured?