Software Quality Characteristics 1.0 the test eye

With all due respect, this is the announcement of the perhaps most powerful public two-page document in the history of software testing.
It is an extended re-write of James Bach’s Quality Criteria Categories, and has been developed to 12 categories (CRUCSPIC STMP) and 93 sub-categories for software quality characteristics/attributes/factors/dimensions/properties/criteria/aspects.
This list is not objectively true, and not easy to use for measuring (compare with ISO 9126-1), but you can adapt it to your context and be inspired by it when understanding/creating/reviewing software quality related stuff.

The PDF is available here, and goes under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivates license, as all our Publications.
Use the list to generate test ideas, or to discuss what is important; get inspired by the concept of Charisma (SPACE HEADS mnemonic)
Suggestions for improvements to the list are very welcome!

We will continuously blog about some of the categories (and sub-categories) in order to provide more information and examples of usage.

Rikard, Henrik, Martin
the test eye

4 Comments
Markus Gärtner December 3rd, 2010

Nice. What is the L in STMPL standing for?

Rikard Edgren December 3rd, 2010

The L in Bach’s list is for Localizability.
We put it as Internationalization/Localization, as a sub-category of Portability (ported to another language/culture.)

Rikard Edgren December 8th, 2010

A good start of a list, but I have already found six candidates for extensions…

Capability, Data agnosticism – supports all possible data formats, and handles noise.
Usability, Control – the user should feel in control over the proceedings of the software.
Charisma, Sex appeal – you just can’t stop looking at or using the product.
Charisma, Uniqueness – the product is distinguishable and has something noone else has.
Security, Piracy Resistance – not possible to illegally copy and distribute the software or code.
Testability, Isolateability – the ability to test a part by itself.

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