Software quality model based on software development approaches

Product quality is determined by the internal factors of the artifacts generated during the analysis, design and implementation stages. Assessing quality based on existing models is not a trivial process. Several development approaches exist (i.e., structured, object-oriented, component-based, and web-based) which involve different kinds of artifacts susceptible of being measured when estimating the product's internal quality. Such internal attributes affect the product's external quality expressed as external characteristics and subcharacteristics. This work aims to specify internal quality considering the approach used to develop the product. For the preparation of this proposal, we identified several artifacts associated to each approach to define internal quality metrics and their impact on the product's external quality. We analyzed the principles inherent to each approach and the artifacts included in their methods. The GQM approach was applied to propose measurements and metrics determining artifacts quality and its relation with ISO/IEC 9126 characteristics and subcharacteristics. The result was a model that gathers the main quality aspects into the six ISO characteristics, and including 298 metrics adapted to these approaches. For reviewing purposes, our new model was applied to four case studies associated to each development approach.