Towards model-based quality evaluation of software products

The technical part of a procedure to evaluate the quality of a softwareproduct (e.g. based on ISO 9126) is typically composed of a tree of attributesand measures; an algorithm to generate the values of high-level attributes frommeasures; a process model and a product model (document types andcomponents to be measured). Specialized product models are also used insoftware quality evaluation for specific purposes, but the issue of modeling theproduct is poorly considered in current quality evaluation practice. We contendthat, (i) software product models are important ingredients of a qualityevaluation procedure; (ii) the evaluation of a product of significant complexitymay require various models of different types. The contributions of the paperare the following: (i) we discuss some case histories of software qualityevaluation, the related product models for quality and their role; (ii) we discussin general the role of product models for software quality evaluation and wepresent a first classification of the types of models (abstraction level of models,goals, related quality attributes, languages).