How to Describe SPL Variabilities in Textual Use Cases: A Systematic Mapping Study

In the Software Product Line (SPL) paradigm, the variability description is an important issue for the requirements engineering process. In this scenario, there are several approaches in the literature focusing on how to describe variability in use cases. However, to the best of our knowledge, no efforts have been made to collect and summarize the existing templates for textual use case description in the SPL paradigm. This paper addresses this gap, presenting a systematic mapping study about SPL variability description in textual use cases. We found with this mapping, nine use case templates and four different ways to describe SPL variabilities in a use case description. From these templates, only one deal with the five variability types identified and we did not find any experimental study comparing these templates in terms of ease of use or comprehensibility.