Top 8 Characteristics Of Software

Top 8 Characteristics Of Software

Below are the top 8 characteristic of software which makes a software complete.The importance of these  quality characteristic cannot be overemphasised.
Properties of software

1. Reliability
2. Correctness
3. Performance
4. Usability
5. Interoperability
6. Maintainability
7. Portability
8. Verifiability

Reliability

A measure of whether a user can depend on the software.For real-time systems, other informal characterisations of reliability might include

• Downtime is below a certain threshold.
• The accuracy of the system is within a certain tolerance.
• Real-time performance requirements are met consistently.

Correctness

• Closely related to reliability and the terms are often used interchangeably.
• The main difference is that minor deviation from the requirements is strictly considered a failure and hence means the software is incorrect.
• However, a system may still be deemed reliable if only minor deviations from the requirements are experienced.
• Correctness is measured in terms of number of failures detected over time.

Performance

• A measure of some required behavior.
• For example, an imaging system might be required to display a filtered image at a rate of 30 frames per second.
• A photo reproduction system might be required to digitize, clean and output color copies at a rate of 1 every two seconds.
• It can be measured via mathematical or algorithmic complexity, direct timing, or simulation.

Usability

• Often referred to as ease of use, or user friendliness.
• Usability is difficult to quantify (but we can easily determine its absence).
• However, informal feedback can be used, as well as user feedback from surveys and problem reports can be used in most cases.

Interoperability

• Refers to the ability of the software system to coexist and cooperate with other systems.
• In imaging systems the software must be able to communicate with various devices using standard bus structures and protocols.
• Open systems and standards foster interoperability.
• Interoperability can be measured in terms of compliance with open system standards.

Portability

• Software is portable if it can easily run in different environments.
• Because of the specialized hardware with which they interact, special care must be taken in making imaging systems portable.
• Portability is achieved through a deliberate design strategy in which hardware dependent code is confined to the fewest code units as possible.
• Can be achieved using either object-oriented or procedural programming languages and through object-oriented or structured approaches.
• Person months required to perform the port are the standard measure of this property.

Verifiability

• A software system is verifiable if its properties, including all of those previously introduced, can be verified easily.
• Can be achieved through the insertion of code that is intended to monitor various qualities such as performance or correctness.
• Modular design, rigorous software engineering practices and the effective use of an appropriate programming language can also contribute to verifiability.