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Quality characteristics

Deliver value with the right quality at speed. That’s what organizations ask of their IT-teams. To determine the right quality the teams use the quality characteristics. These are a very useful tool to identify various characteristics of quality that are important for the stakeholders of an IT-system.

 

Quality has many different aspects, and quality characteristics help identify which aspects are most relevant in a specific situation. Also quality characteristics are one of the important aspects to consider when defining test varieties.  

Over the years, we have seen various standards for quality characteristics (e.g. ISO9126), as well as specific lists for specific situations, such as specified in the TMap Next book [Koomen, 2006].  

A very common set of quality characteristics is the ISO25010 standard (published in 2011) to which an extension for AI and robotics was added in the TMAP book Testing in the digital age [Ven, 2018]. 

Functional testing usually takes up most of the effort and time spent on testing. Often however, the non-functional testing gets less attention than it should, because many IT-failures relate to non-functional problems. [more info: functional and non-functional testing]


Today, with the rapid development of GenAI, we are convinced that the ISO25010 — even with its most recent edition of 2023 — is not sufficient to cover all relevant aspects as quality.

  

Also, with the introduction of the separate ISO25019 standard for quality in use (in 2023), it has become more complex for quality engineers to determine which characteristics are relevant according to ISO. 

 

In our opinion — and we are not alone in this — the latest changes to the ISO standards for quality characteristics have not really improved the situation. Moreover, the lists of quality characteristics have become too long to be practical. Therefore we advise to make your own shortlist of relevant quality characteristics for your context. 

ISO 25010 quality characteristics for product quality

ISO25010 characteristics for product quality


The quality characteristics and their subcharacteristics for product quality are:


  • Functional suitability – The degree to which a product or system provides functions that meet stated and implied needs when used under specified conditions.
    Functional completeness 
    Functional correctness 
    Functional appropriateness
  • Performance efficiency – The performance relative to the amount of resources used under stated condition.
    Time behavior 
    Resource utilization 
    Capacity
  • Compatibility – The degree to which a product, system or component can exchange information with other products, systems or components, and/or perform its required functions, while sharing the same hardware or software environment.
    Co-existence 
    Interoperability
  • Usability – The degree to which a product or system can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use. Appropriateness recognizability 
    Learnability 
    Operability 
    User error protection 
    User interface aesthetics 
    Accessibility
  • Reliability – The degree to which a system, product or component performs specified functions under specified conditions for a specified period of time.
    Maturity 
    Availability 
    Fault tolerance 
    Recoverability
  • Security – The degree to which a product or system protects information and data so that persons or other products or systems have the degree of data access appropriate to their types and levels of authorization.
    Confidentiality
    Integrity 
    Non-repudiation 
    Accountability 
    Authenticity
  • Maintainability – The degree of effectiveness and efficiency with which a product or system can be modified by the intended maintainers.
    Modularity 
    Reusability 
    Analysability 
    Modifiability 
    Testability
  • Portability – The degree of effectiveness and efficiency with which a system, product or component can be transferred from one hardware, software or other operational or usage environment to another.
    Adaptability 
    Installability 
    Replaceability


Detailed information about these characteristics and their subcharacteristics can be found in [ISO25010 2011].


ISO25010 quality characteristics for quality in use

ISO25010 characteristics for quality in use


The quality characteristics and their subcharacteristics for quality in use are:


  • Effectiveness – The accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals. (no subcharacteristics)
  • Efficiency – The resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals. (no subcharacteristics)
  • Satisfaction – The degree to which user needs are satisfied when a product or system is used in a specified context of use.
    Usefulness
    Trust
    Pleasure
    Comfort
  • Freedom from risk – The degree to which a product or system mitigates the potential risk to economic status, human life, health, or the environment.
    Economic risk mitigation
    Health and safety risk mitigation
    Environmental risk mitigation
  • Context coverage – The degree to which a product or system can be used with effectiveness, efficiency, freedom from risk and satisfaction in both specified contexts of use and in contexts beyond those initially explicitly identified.
    Context completeness
    Flexibility


Detailed information about these characteristics and their subcharacteristics can be found in [ISO25010 2011].


Sogeti has defined two extensions to the ISO25010 standard. The first extension was published in 2018 and contains 3 additional product quality characteristics related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics. The second extension was published in 2022 and contains 1 additional characteristic for quality in use about Sustainability.


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