Abstract
Many software development methodologies introduced to date place
users at the centre of development process. Although the user is an
important asset in the software development cycle however the
user-centred approach is not sufficient to develop a software product
that is structurally robust and reliable. User involvement in the
development process does not always guarantee resilience and a more
efficient design. To address this a hybrid-based software development
paradigm is proposed here where the software development cycle includes
a grammar model-based compiler with user-centred approach. The efficacy
of the proposed system is tested with the development of an innovative
computer-aided drawing technology (SETUP09) for blind and visually
impaired people and the results are compared with an existing
non-hybrid-based drawing software (IC2D). The results of this study
confirm SETUP09 improves user satisfaction and provides abstract and
concrete level system flexibility. Provided here are guidelines of the
proposed hybrid approach for software development based on a formal
approach. This hybrid approach enables the software designer to evaluate
the software semantics before user scrutinization. The benefits of the
approach include the facilitation of alternate development pathways
affording the software designer the flexibility to amend the software
without incurring significant technical challenges. In fact, the
proposed approach enables the creation of a structural design that is
independent from the development pathways. This approach should ease the
time constraint in product development and resource constraints.
