Software Quality

Metrics
 Metrics in software quality
assurance

What is Software Quality Metrics?

The word 'metrics' refer to standards for measurements. Software Quality Metrics
means measurement of attributes, pertaining to software quality along with its process
of development.

The term "software quality metrics" illustrate the picture of measuring the software
qualities by recording the number of defects or security loopholes present in the
software. However, quality measurement is not restricted to counting of defects or
vulnerabilities but also covers other aspects of the qualities such as maintainability,
reliability, integrity, usability, customer satisfaction, etc.

Why Software Quality Metrics?

 1. To define and categorize elements in order to have better understanding of each

and every process and attribute.

2. To evaluate and assess each of these process and attribute against the given

requirements and specifications.

3. Predicting and planning the next move w.r.t software and business requirements.

4. Improving the Overall quality of the process and product, and subsequently of
project

Software Quality Metrics: sub-category of Software Metrics

It is basically, a subclass of software metrics that mainly emphasizes on quality assets

of the software product, process and project. Software metric is a broader concept that
incorporates software quality metrics in it, and mainly consists of three types of metrics:
 • Product Metrics:

It includes size, design, complexity, performance and other parameters that are
associated with the product's quality.

• Process Metrics:

It involves parameters like, time-duration in locating and removing defects,

response time for resolving issues, etc.

• Project Metrics:

It may include number of teams, developers involved, cost and duration for the
project, etc.

How to Measure Quality Metrics

Quality metrics are an objective, verifiable number. Unlike subjective data, the
number is both quantifiable and can be confirmed. The potential downside to quality
metrics is that the data may be poor -- while the numbers look good, they may be
measuring the wrong thing, or capturing the information in a way that mars the
resulting information. This type of data can be devastating to your business. Measure
the quality metrics you use to ensure the metrics support the growth of your business

1- Verify that your data provides a view of your complete business cycle.
2- Check if your quality metrics make sense to your customer.
3- Verify that quality metrics track all product offerings, not just the most recent product.
4- Base quality metrics on the stakeholder, not the ease of tracking. Data can be overly
simplistic in its result.
5- Re-orient your quality metrics to your business goals, as necessary.

Aspects of software quality :

1-Reliability. By analyzing the number of defects, you will see how well the software will work
and how long the system will run smoothly without crashing. If you want to have a robust
codebase, low defect count is especially important.
2-Maintainability : Is it difficult to maintain your software? Let’s find it out using the structure,
size, complexity, and consistency metrics that analyze the codebase. It is also important to
check the testability and understandability.
3-Testability : How well does the product support the testing? It depends on how well you
control, automate, isolate, and observe the testing process.
4-Portability : It shows if you can use the software in various environments. There are no tools
that can show the project’s portability, but there are some means to do it. The best option is to
test the code on various platforms without waiting until the end of the development.
5-Reusability : To check if you can use the assets such as code again, use metrics that measure
the number of interdependencies. The reusability depends on the availability of the modularity
or loose coupling.
Reasons to use software quality metrics :

Before we dive into the IT world with all its quality metrics, it is better to start with their
purpose. Why do you even need to use these tools? Let’s take a closer look at the main
advantages of software metrics:

Productivity. One of the most valuable aspects of an app is fast data processing. The
less time it spends on performing the tasks, the better. Some metrics help to increase
and track the project’s productivity and solve urgent issues.

Decision making. Such metrics can come in handy when estimating the influence of
the decisions made. PMs and CEOs can sort out objectives, priorities, and avoid
impulsive resolutions. It helps them to make deliberate compromises, optimize the
project, and achieve the goals of software quality assurance.

Data sorting. You can use metrics to reduce misunderstandings and ambiguities in
complex projects. Through the software organization, you will get objective
information.

Priorities. With metrics, managers will no longer have difficulties while tracking,
identifying, or prioritizing the project’s issues. They can communicate at all the
organization’s levels.

Progress management. Is the project meeting the schedule? Is everything going

well? It is important to control the work’s progress and result, and always have answers
to these questions. Such metrics show the software product’s status as well as its
quality and changes it in.

Management strategy. There are some risks that you have to instantly estimate, control,
and prioritize. Metrics help to manage such issues and avoid future costly solutions. They
determine errors and correct technical parts of the project as well as facilitate management
strategies.
Some of well-known software quality metrics
1- Product quality metrics

• Mean time to failure: It is the time between failures. This metric is mostly
used with safety critical systems such as the airline traffic control systems,
avionics, and weapons.

• Defect density: It measures the defects relative to the software size

expressed as lines of code or function point, etc. i.e., it measures code quality
per unit. This metric is used in many commercial software systems.

• Customer-reported problems: It measures the problems that customers

encounter when using the product.

• Customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is often measured by

customer survey data through the five-point scale −

 Very satisfied
 Satisfied
 Neutral
 Dissatisfied
 Very dissatisfied

2- In-process quality metrics

• Phase-based defect removal pattern: This is an extension of the defect

density metric during testing. In addition to testing, it tracks the defects at all
phases of the development cycle, including the design reviews, code
inspections, and formal verifications before testing.

• Defect removal effectiveness: This metric can be calculated for the entire
development process, for the front-end before code integration and for each
phase.
 • Defect density during formal machine testing: Defect rate during formal
machine testing (testing after code is integrated into the system library) is
correlated with the defect rate in the field.

• Defect arrival pattern during formal machine testing: The overall defect
density during testing will provide only the summary of the defects. The
pattern of defect arrivals gives more information about different quality levels
in the field.

3- Maintenance quality metrics

• Fix backlog: Fix backlog is related to the rate of defect arrivals and the rate
at which fixes for reported problems become available. It is a simple count of
reported problems that remain at the end of each month or each week.

• Backlog management index: Backlog Management Index (BMI) is used to

manage the backlog of open and unresolved problems.

• Fix response time and fix responsiveness: The fix response time metric is
usually calculated as the mean time of all problems from open to close. Short
fix response time leads to customer satisfaction.

• Percent delinquent fixes