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is divided further into attributes. An attribute is an entity that can be verified or
measured in the software product. Attributes are not defined in the standard, as they
vary between different software products.
A software product is defined in a broad sense; it encompasses executables, source
code, architecture descriptions, and so on. As a result, the notion of user extends to
operators as well as to programmers, which are users of components as software
libraries.
The standard provides a framework for organizations to define a quality model for
a software product. On doing so, however, it leaves up to each organization the task
of precisely specifying its own model. This may be done, for example, by specifying
target values for quality metrics, which evaluates the degree of presence of quality
attributes.
The quality model established in the first part of the standard (ISO 9126-1) clas-
sifies software quality in a structured set of characteristics and subcharacteristics as
follows:
Functionality —A set of attributes that bear on the existence of a set of functions
and their specified properties. The functions are those that satisfy stated or
implied needs.
Suitability
Accuracy
Interoperability
Compliance
Security
Usability —A set of attributes that bear on the effort needed for use and on the
individual assessment of such use, by a stated or implied set of users.
Learnability
Understandability
Operability
Efficiency —A set of attributes that bear on the relationship between the level
of performance of the software and the amount of resources used under stated
conditions.
Time behavior
Resource behavior
Maintainability —A set of attributes that bear on the effort needed to make
specified modifications.
Stability
Analyzability
Changeability
Testability
Portability —A set of attributes that bear on the ability of software to be trans-
ferred from one environment to another.
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