FeClustRE: Hierarchical Clustering and Semantic Tagging of App Features from User Reviews

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tiessler, Max, Motger, Quim
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915567882993664
author Tiessler, Max
Motger, Quim
author_facet Tiessler, Max
Motger, Quim
contents [Context and motivation.] Extracting features from mobile app reviews is increasingly important for multiple requirements engineering (RE) tasks. However, existing methods struggle to turn noisy, ambiguous feedback into interpretable insights. [Question/problem.] Syntactic approaches lack semantic depth, while large language models (LLMs) often miss fine-grained features or fail to structure them coherently. In addition, existing methods output flat lists of features without semantic organization, limiting interpretation and comparability. Consequently, current feature extraction approaches do not provide structured, meaningful representations of app features. As a result, practitioners face fragmented information that hinder requirement analysis, prioritization, and cross-app comparison, among other use cases. [Principal ideas/results.] In this context, we propose FeClustRE, a framework integrating hybrid feature extraction, hierarchical clustering with auto-tuning and LLM-based semantic labelling. FeClustRE combines syntactic parsing with LLM enrichment, organizes features into clusters, and automatically generates meaningful taxonomy labels. We evaluate FeClustRE on public benchmarks for extraction correctness and on a sample study of generative AI assistant app reviews for clustering quality, semantic coherence, and interpretability. [Contribution.] Overall, FeClustRE delivers (1) a hybrid framework for feature extraction and taxonomy generation, (2) an auto-tuning mechanism with a comprehensive evaluation methodology, and (3) open-source and replicable implementation. These contributions bridge user feedback and feature understanding, enabling deeper insights into current and emerging requirements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_18799
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FeClustRE: Hierarchical Clustering and Semantic Tagging of App Features from User Reviews
Tiessler, Max
Motger, Quim
Software Engineering
[Context and motivation.] Extracting features from mobile app reviews is increasingly important for multiple requirements engineering (RE) tasks. However, existing methods struggle to turn noisy, ambiguous feedback into interpretable insights. [Question/problem.] Syntactic approaches lack semantic depth, while large language models (LLMs) often miss fine-grained features or fail to structure them coherently. In addition, existing methods output flat lists of features without semantic organization, limiting interpretation and comparability. Consequently, current feature extraction approaches do not provide structured, meaningful representations of app features. As a result, practitioners face fragmented information that hinder requirement analysis, prioritization, and cross-app comparison, among other use cases. [Principal ideas/results.] In this context, we propose FeClustRE, a framework integrating hybrid feature extraction, hierarchical clustering with auto-tuning and LLM-based semantic labelling. FeClustRE combines syntactic parsing with LLM enrichment, organizes features into clusters, and automatically generates meaningful taxonomy labels. We evaluate FeClustRE on public benchmarks for extraction correctness and on a sample study of generative AI assistant app reviews for clustering quality, semantic coherence, and interpretability. [Contribution.] Overall, FeClustRE delivers (1) a hybrid framework for feature extraction and taxonomy generation, (2) an auto-tuning mechanism with a comprehensive evaluation methodology, and (3) open-source and replicable implementation. These contributions bridge user feedback and feature understanding, enabling deeper insights into current and emerging requirements.
title FeClustRE: Hierarchical Clustering and Semantic Tagging of App Features from User Reviews
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.18799