Understanding the Customer: What Do We Know about Requirements Elicitation?

"Getting the requirements right" is one of the most important activities in software development, and making a crucial misstep at this phase can easily lead to large amounts of rework. The best way to develop a high-quality system with minimal effort is still to get the requirements right the first time. However, requirements elicitation still relies mainly on the same old proven techniques: interviewing the customer and showing him or her prototypes to get feedback. Has research has provided any clues on how to better accomplish this