Software quality is one of the most important aspects of software engineering. You can find a lot of documentation and information about how to measure software quality on the internet. But your test can be successful only if you know the true parameters to measure software quality.
Of course, it is up to you and your clients to set the standards for your software. But we are not talking about how well your software must perform or how exactly it should work. That’s the test case for you to set. What we are talking about here, is the basic qualities that every top-notch software possesses.
These qualities are what determine that your software applications are not only ready for customers to use but also have very little room for errors along the road ahead. So without wasting any more time, let us discuss the metrics on which you can determine whether your software will pass or fail in the market.
Code Quality
Code Quality is the degree to which a software system’s code meets the specification and design rules. It is measured by examining the quality of the source code, class definitions, and method implementations. In addition, unit tests can be used to measure code quality.
To improve code quality, several things like it has to pass with software testing life cycle, and adding some more below:
Formalize your code: When writing new classes or methods, make sure that you specify all the attributes and input parameters clearly and consistently.
Complement your documentation: Make sure that your document contains all relevant information about classes and methods. Also, include a short overview of what each class does and any limitations on use or performance issues that might affect users of your application.
Write good automated tests: You should write automated tests for every new feature you add to your application as well as for small fixes or enhancements to existing features. These tests will ensure that bugs do not go unnoticed until they cause severe problems later on down the road.
Reliability
Reliability is a measure of how “robust” a system is, and how well it can recover from failures. The idea is to test the system for its ability to operate when things go wrong and still keep running.
The metrics we’ll need are:
The number of failures in x seconds – How much time till the software take to fail in fulfilling a certain function and how long will it take for it to recover? How many times has this happened in the past?
Mean time between failures (MTBF) – It’s the average number of software failures. It’s useful because if you know that your MTBF is 3 hours, then you know that if something goes wrong there will be at least 3 hours between failures; if something goes wrong there might be up to 6 hours.
Specificity or ratio of successes to failures – This ratio tells us how common certain errors are in your system compared with other errors (e.g., how often do you get requests for information that no one wants?). We can calculate this by dividing it by the total number of tests done.
Performance
Measuring the performance of your software is one of the most important metrics to focus on. This is not just about how fast it runs, but also how well it performs the task at hand. In a sense, performance is a measure of how well your code does its job, in other words, what you get out of it.
There are some parameters on which you can measure how well your software can perform. The following are some examples:
Average response time (or latency) – This usually measures how long it takes for each request to be processed by the server, but can also include other factors like network delays or traffic volume. You’ll want to use tools like Pingdom or New Relic to measure this metric.
Throughput – This measures how many requests are processed per second. It’s important to make sure that your application doesn’t slow down because of too much traffic or high-volume queries. Tools like Pingdom and New Relic can help you keep track of throughput levels over time.
Usability
The level of ease or difficulty with which the user can complete certain functions using the software. Usability is often confused with ease of learning, but there is a difference. For example, if a user learns how to use your product in 20 minutes and it takes 30 hours for another user to learn it, then you have good usability. The first user will find your product easy to use because he has already learned what he needs to know. The second user will find the product hard to use because she has not yet learned all the details that she needs to know.
Usability can be affected by many factors, including
- User’s familiarity with a system
- The Physical environment
- User’s level of cognitive ability (i.e., intelligence)
- System layout and design
Correctness
Correctness is a measure of the absence of defects in software. It is also known as functional test coverage and can be measured using static analysis and dynamic testing.
Static analysis tools like FindBugs, PMD, and Checkstyle are used to check for violations of various coding standards such as the CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) or PMD (Payload Matcher Design). These tools check whether statements in code comply with certain rules (e.g., writing null checks) or whether they do not violate coding standards such as NSLayoutConstraint or NSLayoutFlexibleSpace. The last one is especially important when working with iOS because it checks whether methods that are not marked as @Injectable can be injected correctly into classes.
Dynamic testing tools like UIAutomation or UI Automation perform tests on real devices. They check whether your app behaves as expected during actual use by simulating user interactions or displaying network requests.
Maintainability
How easy is it to change or repair your software? Is it easy to make modifications with time? All of this concerns the maintainability of the software. It is an important concept in software engineering because the quality of a system can be measured by its maintainability.
Maintainability analysis aims to determine if the system can be changed without incurring excessive costs. Maintainability analysis determines if any obstacles inhibit changes and make it easier for other people to modify the system.
The key concepts behind maintainability are:
Change: Anything that changes the behavior of a system must be carefully designed and planned. Change should be limited by design so that the change does not introduce new bugs into the system.
Reuse: The goal of reuse is to create components within your program that can be used in multiple places within your program. Reuse is achieved through composition (building on existing components) or composition based on composition (building upon multiple existing components).
Integrity
Integrity is a fundamental quality of software. The degree to which the software meets its design goals and objectives, and adheres to a set of rules that govern its functionality and behavior.
Integrity is measured by comparing an application’s behavior against the documented way it should behave. If an application fails to meet its specification, there are usually many possible causes for this failure, such as poor development or testing practices, or even latent bugs in the code itself.
The best way to measure integrity is through comparisons with other applications in the same category or industry. For example, if you are developing a web application for restaurants and comparing it with an online booking system for hotels, you can see if there are any differences in how they behave under certain circumstances (such as when users try to book a table).
The results will show whether your application behaves as expected or not; for example, if it does not allow users to search for tables based on criteria such as price range or location but instead only allows them to search based on their preferences, then this would be considered bad design because it defeats the purpose of having a search system in place (and therefore could cause customer dissatisfaction).
Security
Security is a high priority for nearly every organization and every user. But sometimes, developers and clients tend to overlook this aspect during software development just because they want their product to consist of more flashy features.
It’s important to have a security testing process in place from the start of your project to ensure that all your software meets certain standards for security. This includes making sure that all code is properly reviewed and audited before being deployed into production environments.
The quality of your security measures will determine how much trust you can place in your software. To measure the security of your software, you can conduct a variety of tests like vulnerability tests, code analysis, penetration tests, and more. Check Zerodha App for PC Windows
Final words
You must remember that users want to use high-quality software. Therefore, you must pay attention to the parameters that would determine the quality of your software. Also, you should never hesitate to ask for customer feedback on how to make your software better. After all, it’s they who use it, so it’s just practical to ask them how they would want their software to perform.
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