Quality model

A quality model is a taxonomy that defines a set of quality attributes relating to both the static properties of software and the dynamic properties of the running system it forms. Its purpose is to give everyone involved in a system – those specifying it, building it, evaluating it, and maintaining it – consistent, shared terminology for talking about quality, rather than each party inventing their own vocabulary for the same concerns.

ISO/IEC 25010 is the standard quality model most widely referenced in software engineering.

A quality model provides a taxonomy of terms, not a method for measuring or evaluating quality. ISO/IEC 25010 itself is sometimes read as claiming to support "measuring and evaluating" quality, but the model alone supplies only consistent terminology. Actually measuring or evaluating a system against it requires additional tools and methods.

References

• ISO/IEC (2023). ISO/IEC 25010:2023 — Systems and software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) — Quality model.