Quality Attributes

While functionality describes exactly what a software system does, quality attributes describe how well the system performs those functions. Quality attributes measure the overarching “goodness” of an architecture along specific dimensions, encompassing critical properties such as extensibility, availability, security, performance, robustness, interoperability, and testability.

Important quality attributes include:

• Interoperability: the degree to which two or more systems or components can usefully exchange meaningful information via interfaces in a particular context.