A requirement analysis for a multi-party conferencing testbed

Current videoconferencing services such as Skype and Google+Hangouts provide mechanisms for engaging in multi-party conversations. Although these services provide basic support, they lack functionalities that take into account the users roles and context. Currently, the multimedia research community is actively engaged in conducting experiments concerning Quality of Experi- ence (QoE). This paper provides a requirement analy- sis for a multi-party conferencing testbed, that is de- signed for conducting controlled telecommunication ex- periments for assessing QoE. A pre-study, in the form of an online survey, investigated the experience with pre- vious tools and identified the interest towards using the CWI tool for future studies. Requirements are derived through semi-structured interviews by looking into the experimental process and issues that stakeholders are currently facing. Results show that having the capabil- ity to pre-define the experimental conditions and man- ually adjust these throughout the experiment are inte- gral aspects within the tool. Furthermore, various con- trol possibilities to interact with the test participants are needed. Subjective assessment integration in the form of questionnaires and logging of technical condi- tions are important requirements to support the anal- ysis phase. Documentation, coding support and easy customizability are crucial aspects influencing the over- all tool usability. The listed requirements provide a framework for further development of QoE assessment tools in the area of telecommunication studies and, furthermore, contribute to the open-source development of the multi-party conferencing testbed.