Non-functional requirements in software architecture practice

Dealing with non-functional requirements (NFRs) has posed a challenge onto software engineers for many years. Over the years, many methods and techniques have been proposed to improve their elicitation, documentation, and validation. Knowing more about the state of the practice on these topics may b...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ameller, David|||0000-0002-3725-566X, Ayala Martínez, Claudia Patricia|||0000-0002-6262-3698, Cabot Sagrera, Jordi, Franch Gutiérrez, Javier|||0000-0001-9733-8830
Tipo de recurso: informe técnico
Fecha de publicación:2012
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/15716
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/15716
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Software architecture -- Development
Non-functional requirement
Quality requirement
NFR
Software architect
Architectural decision
Empirical study
Programari -- Arquitectura -- Desenvolupament
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Sistemes d'informació
Descripción
Sumario:Dealing with non-functional requirements (NFRs) has posed a challenge onto software engineers for many years. Over the years, many methods and techniques have been proposed to improve their elicitation, documentation, and validation. Knowing more about the state of the practice on these topics may benefit both practitioners’ and researchers’ daily work. A few empirical studies have been conducted in the past, but none under the perspective of software architects, in spite of the great influence that NFRs have on daily architects’ practices. This paper presents some of the findings of an empirical study based on 13 interviews with software architects. It addresses questions such as: who decides the NFRs, what types of NFRs matter to architects, how are NFRs documented, and how are NFRs validated. The results are contextualized with existing previous work.