Role of Verification

Abstract

All members of the working group had an interest in formal verification and, at some level, were concerned with the formal specification of interactive systems. During the early stages of discussion, a number of topics were briefly identified. An initial suggestion was that the group should produce a “design space” for verification techniques. This idea was discarded. It was felt that work on a design space would be premature; the dimensions were, as yet, unclear. However, it was agreed that this would be a relevant topic for future work. The group concerned itself with two issues. It was agreed that the two key topics in verification were: checking that specifications satisfy requirements, and verifying that implementations were correct with respect to specifications. The key issue for discussion was agreed to be the nature of the distinctiveness of interactive systems in the context of verification. A further initial discussion topic was the problem of developing an interface for a verifier. The problem here was that of making verification tools accessible to appropriate people, for example human factors designers. Although this was believed to be an important topic, it was initially discarded as outside the scope of the discussion though picked up again briefly later.