Lecture 3: Software Quality Attributes: Comparison of Various

Software Quality Models

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Software Quality Models are a standardized way of measuring a software product. With the increasing
trend in software industry, new applications are planned and developed every day. This eventually
gives rise to the need for reassuring that the product so built meets at least the expected standards.

Following are some models that explains what kind of quality criteria may be followed.

a) Mc Call's Model - Mccall Model is the first quality model developed, which defines a layout
of the various aspects that define the product's quality. It defines the product quality in the
following manner – Product Revision, Product Operation, Product Transition.

i) Product Revision
It encompasses the revision perspective identifiers quality factors that changes or enhances the
ability to change the software product in the future according to the needs and requirements of
the user.

 Maintainability- If there are defects in the software that are found in the later stage,
this feature allows finding and fixing the defects.
 Flexibility- The ability to make changes in the software product according to the
business demands.
 Testability- This enables the software product to validate the requirements.

ii) Product Transition:

Transition perspective enables the software to adapt itself in new environments. The
identification of the quality factor which enables the ability of adaption of the software in the
new environment is known as product transition. For example example, our creator created the
software named human. The creator incorporated ability to this software that enhances it to
adapt in the new environment.

 Portability- This is the ability to transfer a software from one environment to

another environment.
 Re-usability- The software components can be used in different contexts.
 Interoperability- The ease or the comfort zone in which all the components of
the software works together.

iii) Product Operations:

The software can run successfully in the market if it according to the specifications of the user
and also it should run smoothly without any defects. The product operation perspective
influences the extent to which the software fulfills its specifications-
 Correctness- The functionality should match the specification.
 Reliability- The extent to which the system fails.
  Efficiency- It enhances the usage of system resource.
 Usability- The software should be easy to use. Difficult software is tedious to
work upon and difficulty irks the user.

b) Boehm Model - This model describes how easily and reliably a software product can be used.
This model actually elaborates the aspects of McCall model in detail. It begins with the
characteristics that resorts to higher level requirements. The model's general utility is divided
into various factors - portability, efficiency and human engineering, which are the refinement of
factors like portability and utility. Further maintainability is refined into testability,
understandability and modifiability.

The Boehm software quality model attempts to quantify software quality through a series of
attribute indicators. Boehm's quality model includes hardware attributes that are not in the
McCall model. The Boehm model is also similar to McCall's quality model, using a hierarchical
quality model structure, including high-level attributes, middle-level attributes and original
attributes.
High-level attributes mainly focus on 3 issues:
 As-Is Utility: It defines the way a utility signifies the as-is utility. It creates a question of
how easily, reliably and efficiently an as-is can be utilized.
 Maintainability: This aspect decides how convenient it is to understand, change or re-
evaluate a process.
 Portability: This aspect helps in deciding an effective way to change an environment.

The middle attribute contains 7 quality elements:

 Portability (General utility characteristics)
 Reliability (As-is utility characteristics)
 Efficiency (As-is utility characteristics)
 Usability (As-is utility characteristics, Human Engineering)
 Testability (Maintainability characteristics)
 Understandability (Maintainability characteristics)
 Flexibility (Maintainability characteristics, Modifiability)

It can be seen that the Boehm model is somewhat similar to the McCall model. The difference is that
the McCall model mainly focuses on the accurate measurement of high-level attributes ("As-is utility"),
while the Boehm model is based on a wider range of attributes, and maintains the maintainability.
More attention.
The factors can result into creation of other measurable properties. These are as follows:

Device Independence. Device efficiency.

Accuracy. Accessibility.
Completeness. Communicativeness.
Robustness. Self-descriptiveness.
Consistency. Legibility.
Accountability Augment-ability.
 The attributes can be mapped as follows

c) FURPS Model -This model categorises requirements into functional and non-functional
requirements. The term FURPS is an acronym for Functional requirement(F) which relies on
expected input and output, and in non-functional requirements (U) stands for Usability which
includes human factors, aesthetic, documentation of user material of training, (R) stands for
reliability(frequency and severity of failure, time among failure), (P) stands for Performance that
includes functional requirements, and finally (S) stands for supportability that includes backup,
requirement of design and implementation etc.

 Functionality - Capability (Size & Generality of Feature Set), Reusability (Compatibility,

Interoperability, Portability), Security (Safety & Exploitability)
  Usability (UX) - Human Factors, Aesthetics, Consistency, Documentation,
Responsiveness
 Reliability - Availability (Failure Frequency (Robustness/Durability/Resilience), Failure
Extent & Time-Length (Recoverability/Survivability)), Predictability (Stability), Accuracy
(Frequency/Severity of Error)
 Performance - Speed, Efficiency, Resource Consumption (power, ram, cache, etc.),
Throughput, Capacity, Scalability
 Supportability (Serviceability, Maintainability, Sustainability, Repair Speed) - Testability,
Flexibility (Modifiability, Configurability, Adaptability, Extensibility, Modularity),
Installability, Localizability

The model, developed at Hewlett-Packard was first publicly elaborated by Grady and
Caswell. FURPS+ is now widely used in the software industry. The + was later added to the model
after various campaigns at HP to extend the acronym to emphasize various attributes

d) ISO 9126-1 Quality Model -This model has two primary categories – internal and external
quality attributes and quality in use attributes. The internal quality attributes are the properties
of the system the evaluation of which can be done without executing it. Whereas the external
quality attributes are those that are evaluated by observing the system during execution.
Like every software, ISO 926 software model has distinct qualities. These are laid on following basis:
i) Functionality: It is a key aspect of any product or service. It is due to this the software is
able to fulfill a task and keep to its purpose. It is defined as a software product that helps
to meet the needs of the clients. A functionality of software is dependent on its complexity.
For example: an ATM machine. This is further divided in other categories are as follows:
 Suitability.
 Accuracy.
 Interoperability.
 Security.
 Functional compliance.
 Reliability
ii) Reliability: This characteristic determines the capability of software to sustain its use
when put under different circumstances.
iii) Usability: The usability of software is highly dependent on the functional uses of
software. For example: ATM machine is used to withdraw cash. According to the usability
of an ATM; the ATM is not affected or influenced by any amounts entered by the user.
This is further divided into other sub-categories and these are as follows:
 Maturity.
 Fault Tolerance.
  Recoverability.
 Reliability Compliance.
iv) Efficiency: This feature of the model is more concerned by resources of the system when
used for providing a desired functionality. This type of feature is defined by amount of
disk space, memory and network. This is further divided into other sub-categories and
these are as follows:
 Understandability.
 Learner ability.
 Operability.
 Attractiveness.
 Usability Compliance.
v) Maintainability: This property of maintainability of the software model is used to
recognize and fix a defect accordingly. The model is inspected for the faults and these can
be identified easily. In accordance to this the cause and effect of maintainability of software
is a concern. This is further divided into other sub-categories and these are as follows:
 Analyzability.
 Resource Utilization.
 Stability.
 Testability.
 Changeability.
vi) Portability: According to this feature, capable software should easily adapt to the
environmental changes frequently as possible. The designing of an object and the practices
of its implementation are highly dependent on this feature. This standard method is further
divided in few categories:
 Adaptability.
 Install ability.
 Co-existence.
 Replaceability.
 Portability compliance.