Imagine that your are so wealthy that you can afford to have a house built to your specification by an architect.

CS2 Software Quality Models of Quality

Software Quality

Software Quality

The blueprints and scale model abstract the essential features of the building so that you can get an idea of what youre paying for before building starts.

Lecture Objectives In order to be able to predict, establish or compare the quality of software components we need to understand what we mean by quality. The purpose of this lecture is to define and describe a number of models of quality.

Models are used in software development to abstract certain essential features of a software component.

Software Quality

Software Quality

Last week we posed the question: Who is the best footballer in England today? Difficult to say - how do you measure best? Highest goal scorer? Best passer of the ball? Best defender?
Software Quality Software Quality

Who is the best football team in England? Much easier to say - look at the League Tables The League system offers us a model of best

Car safety can be compared using the New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) which looks at how well the driver or passenger of a particular model of car would survive a crash.
http://www.fia.com/tourisme/crash/contents.htm

So can we apply a quality model to software?

Software Quality

Software Quality

One model of quality (after McCall):

Product Revision Maintainability - Can I fix it?

Product Product Revision Transition

Flexibility - Can I change it? Testability - Can I test it? We will be concentrating on these factors in this course

Product Operations

Software Quality

Software Quality

Product Operations Product Transition Portability - Will I be able to use it on another machine? Reusability - Will I be able to reuse some of the software? Interoperability - Will I be able to interface it with other components?
Software Quality

Correctness - Does it do what I want? Reliability - Does it do it accurately all of the time? Efficiency - Will it run as well as it can? Integrity - Is it secure? Usability - Is it easy to use?
Software Quality

Defining Metrics
Quality factors FCM (McCall) Metrics GQM (Basili)

The FCM (Factor-Criteria-Metric) approach of McCall

quality

factor 1

factor 2

criterion 1

criterion 2

metric 1

metric 2

Software Quality

Software Quality

FCM formula
Measure QFactor = (Coeff1 * M1) + (Coeff2 * M2)(Coeffn * Mn)

FCM
Quality Reusability

Where: Mn = Criteria measure Coeffn = Weighting coefficient (or importance factor)

Generality

Modularity

Op. System Machine independence independence

Pre-defines the metrics for each factor Pre-defines the coefficients

Software Quality Software Quality

FCM Exercise
1. Identify 3 - 4 factors for the quality of a module specification. 2. Identify 1-2 criteria for each factor.
criterion 1 factor 1 quality

FCM summary
Easy to use and understand. Centres on the end-product. Relationship between factors, criteria and metrics disputable. Weighting coefficients disputable. Generally useful after product has been development, not before. Can still be highly subjective.
Software Quality

factor 2

criterion 2

metric 1

metric 2

Software Quality

Factor Product Revision

Criteria Maintainability Flexibility Testability Product Transition Portability Reusability Interoperability Product Correctness Operations Reliability Efficiency Integrity Usability
Software Quality

Metric

Goals, Questions & Metrics

List Goals Purpose (what) Perspective (who) Environment (impact) Derive questions How would I know if goals are being met? Measures to answer questions all good properties of metrics direct / indirect
Software Quality

Goal-Question-Metric (GSM) Model

Goal: Evaluate New Design Method X Question: What productivity improvements? Metric: Average Experience Metric: LOC
Software Quality

Goal-Question-Metric (GSM) Model Goal: Reduce Module Testing Time

etc

Question: Who is using X? Metric: Proportion of designers

Questions Metrics ...

Software Quality

Other Sources: Norman Fenton, Software Metrics: a Rigorous Approach, Chapman & Hall, 1991. Watts Humphrey, A Discipline for Software Engineering, Addison-Wesley, 1995. Brian Hambling, Managing Software Quality, McGraw-Hill, 1996. Stephen Kan, Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering, AddisonWesley, 1995.
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Joc Saunders & Eugene Curran, Software Quality, Addison-Wesley, 1994. http://www.adeptsys.com/Pages/goal_questions_metric.html http://www.iese.fhg.de/Services/Projects/Public-Projects/Perfect/GQM/GQM.html Yasuhiro Mashiko & Victor R. Basili, Using the GQM Paradigm to Investigate Influential Factors for Software Process Improvement, Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 36, No. 1, January 1997.
Software Quality