Abstract
Software quality requirements defined in the requirements analysis stage should be implemented in the final products, such as source codes and system deployment. To guarantee this meta-requirement, quality requirements should be considered in the intermediate stages, such as the design stage or the architectural definition stage. We propose a novel method for checking whether quality requirements are considered in the design stage. In this method, a technique called “spectrum analysis for quality requirements” is applied not only to requirements specifications but also to design documents. The technique enables us to derive the spectrum of a document, and quality requirements considerations in the document are numerically represented in the spectrum. We can thus objectively identify whether the considerations of quality requirements in a requirements document are adapted to its design document. To validate the method, we applied it to commercial software systems with the help of a supporting tool, and we confirmed that the method worked well.
Highlights
In the same way as functional requirements, quality requirements, such as security, usability, reliability, and efficiency should be defined at the requirements definition stage because these requirements are the dominant factor in development costs and efforts
Method we introduce the method for confirming quality requirements considerations in a design document by using spectrum analysis
We used quality characteristics defined in the ISO 9126 standard (International Standard ISO/IEC 9126 1991) as the categorization of quality requirements
Summary
In the same way as functional requirements, quality requirements, such as security, usability, reliability, and efficiency should be defined at the requirements definition stage because these requirements are the dominant factor in development costs and efforts. We have no standard ways to confirm such quality requirements are adapted in upcoming software artifacts such as design documents or test cases. At the last stage of software development, we can confirm whether quality requirements are adapted and implemented through testing. It is, too late to find incorrect or missing quality requirements in software implementation at this stage because the design and/or codes would need to be revised.
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