On Non-Functional Requirements: A Survey - Critique

This article provides a critique of the paper 'On Non-Functional Requirements: A Survey' which discusses the importance of non-functional requirements in software engineering methodologies. The paper describes the content and intention of the selected article, the methodology used for the survey, the findings from the research, and the problems or issues highlighted by the authors. The relevance of the selected article to the unit of study is also discussed.

Running head: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING METHODOLOGY
Software Engineering Methodology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
Intention and Content of the selected article:.............................................................................2
Used Methodology for Survey:..................................................................................................3
Findings from the Research:......................................................................................................3
Problem or Issues highlighted by the authors:...........................................................................4
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................5
References:.................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction:
In the system engineering methodology the non-functional requirements or the NFR is
a requirement criteria which is used for judgement of operation of a system rather than some
specific behaviours [1]. The non-functional requirement of the software engineering
contrasted with the functional requirement of the system. In most of the cases the non-
functional requirement is considered as the quality attributes of a specific type of system. In
the case of the software the non-functional requirements are the reliability, security,
maintainability, performance, usability and scalability.
In this article, a paper on non-functional requirement in software engineering
methodology will be critiqued properly. For performing the critique, the selected article is the
“On Non-Functional Requirements: A Survey.” In this article the authors reviewed the art of
the treatment of the non-functional requirement in the software engineering methodologies.
This article will also describe the content and intention of the article. From the broad
discussion of the selected article various issues highlighted by the author will be evaluated.
Further how the selected article is relevant with the unit of study will be discussed.
Intention and Content of the selected article:
The main intention of the selected article is providing a brief idea about the non-
functional requirement for software engineering methodologies and the importance of this in
the software engineering. Also, the article “On Non-Functional Requirements: A Survey.”
intends to provide a brief review of the literature of the non-functional requirement and the
most advanced uses of it in the software engineering processes.
Describing the content of the article, in very first the authors has briefly defined about
the non-functional requirements. As per the authors in this article the NFR or the non-
functional requirement is one of the major aspect for development of the software [2]. This
article has discussed about framework of the non-functional requirements. According to the
authors, this NFR framework is very much important for decoupling the concepts of the
functionalities from the other quality attributes. In this section the authors has discussed about
the basic non-functional requirements for software engineering which includes performance,
reliability, availability, compatibility and the usability. Authors has also shared the
importance of the distinction between the functionality and the other qualities in the field of
the software engineering. As per the authors the distinctions helps the software engineers

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with the requirement which meant to deal with quality attributes [3]. Further section of the
article has described about the classification schemes about the software engineering
methodologies. In this classification scheme four types of quality levels are classified. These
four level of the classification are the external quality, quality in use, process quality and the
internal quality. In this section another proposal has been made in this article about the
classification of soft goals and goals that are driven by the non-functional perspectives. This
classification also has provided four level of categories [4] which are non-functional hard
goals, functional hard goals, non-functional soft goals and functional soft goals.
In this article the authors has done a survey on the non-functional requirement for a
system engineering. This survey has been done by the authors within the IT industry on the
process how the non-functional requirements can be specified very easily [2]. As per the
authors the requirement engineering should be complex in nature and must be well thought
out for programming and designing. In this survey the authors has made some effort which
perfectly shows the various defining ways of the non-functional requirement during the
development of the software. The authors has also determined that non-functional
requirement plays no role and not even founded in the process of the software development
life cycle.
Used Methodology for Survey:
In this case the main aim of the authors for conducting the research is the articulating
the non-functional requirement for the software engineering methodologies which can come
up with new unexpected functional requirements and in the further cases this actually creates
a vicious cycle. To do the research perfectly the authors founded, specified and rectified the
non-functional attributes [2]. For the process of the rectification of the non-functional
attributes the authors has taken the help of the current and past researches. To perform this
survey the authors has chosen the IT industry and conducted this survey on formal way of
defining, specifying and measuring the non-functional requirements. In this research the non-
functional requirement has taken into consideration for the process of the software
development but there were different types problems regarding to the birth of the new
functional requirements [10]. To resolve this issue process oriented approach has been taken
in this research.

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Findings from the Research:
In this article the authors has completed a survey on the non-functional requirement.
From the survey the authors has assessed that a lot more woke is needed in the field of the
software engineering so that they can come up with a formal way of, specifying, defining and
measuring the non-functional requirement [5]. From the survey an interesting analysis has
been done where three dimension of the non-functional requirement has been found which
includes definition and terminology of non-functional requirement, types of non-functional
requirement and relevant non-functional requirement in various types of application domain
and systems. From that it has been determined that various types of application domain
consist different type of non-functional requirement [8]. Comparing to the other studies
related with the non-functional requirement of software engineering methodologies the
findings of the authors are absolutely correct all of the identified non-functional requirement
are very much important in the current competitive market of the software engineering [7].
The authors has also found that neglecting the non-functional requirement can considered but
it can be a risky task for the developers to do so. From the survey the author has founded that
early detection of the non-functional requirement is very much useful as it successfully
enable the system level constrains which can be incorporated in the early architectural
designs. This statement of the authors actually make sense because neglecting the non-
functional requirements such as the performance, reliability, compatibility, usability and
availability can create problems in the developed system in future which has been assessed
form various of other researchers and the main reason behind that the developed system will
fail to meet the requirement of customers.
Problem or Issues highlighted by the authors:
In the selected article there are various types of problems has been highlighted by the
authors. According to the authors the main problem in this research was deriving new
functional requirements from the non-functional requirement. As per the author conflict
among the non-functional requirement is also a big problem but this has been successfully
avoided in this case by the process oriented approach [2]. Considering this problem with
developing new functional requirement it can be commented that this will create problem in
the development of new software related product.
Another type of problem has been highlighted by the author in this article which is
improper management of the non-functional requirement and the functional requirement or

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neglecting the non-functional requirement and functional requirement of a very complex and
expensive system [6]. Regarding this problem the author has founded that the software which
has been developed with improper management or developed by ignoring the non-functional
requirement has a failure chance of 60% or more than that [9]. Actually, all the common
software development models successfully manages the non-functional requirement and this
is the main reason that every software developers uses that common software development
models.
The selected article for critique is completely related with the topic of the unit study
because the main aim of the selected paper is describing the importance of the non-functional
requirement in the software engineering methodologies where the unit study is also
concerned with the critique of the non-functional requirement in the context of the software
engineering. The main aim of this critique is evaluating the reasons that why the non-
functional requirement of a system is so much important in the software engineering
processes.
Conclusion:
Form the above discussion it can be concluded that the non-functional requirement are
very much important in the case of the software engineering methodologies. The main reason
behind the importance of the non-functional requirement is that it provides quality attributes,
some certain realization or design or design constrains which are directly related with the
software engineering processes. Also, this non-functional requirement is able to act as
additional description of functions of the products which are under development process and
also very much important for the stakeholders. First in this paper a brief description of the
intention and content of the selected article has been provided. Following the description of
the selected research paper the research technique or method used by the paper has been
evaluated. In the next section of this critique paper findings from the article “On Non-
Functional Requirements: A Survey” has been derived. The selected article has discussed
about various types of problem also which been highlighted by the authors. Considering those
issues highlighted by the authors some comments has been passed over those problems in this
paper. Further, justification has been given why the selected article is relevant with the topics
covered in the unit study.

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References:
[1] Laplante, Phillip A. Requirements engineering for software and systems. Auerbach
Publications, 2017.
[2] Bajpai, Vikas, and Ravi Prakash Gorthi. "On non-functional requirements: A survey."
In Electrical, Electronics and Computer Science (SCEECS), 2012 IEEE Students' Conference
on, pp. 1-4. IEEE, 2012.
[3] Chung, Lawrence, and Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite. "On non-functional
requirements in software engineering." In Conceptual modeling: Foundations and
applications, pp. 363-379. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009.
[4] Wiegers, Karl, and Joy Beatty. Software requirements. Pearson Education, 2013.
[5] Kumar, Naresh, A. S. Zadgaonkar, and Abhinav Shukla. "Evolving a new software
development life cycle model SDLC-2013 with client satisfaction." International Journal of
Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE) 3, no. 1 (2013): 2231-2307.
[6] Kaur, Rupinder, and Jyotsna Sengupta. "Software process models and analysis on failure
of software development projects." arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.1068 (2013).
[7] Völter, Markus, Thomas Stahl, Jorn Bettin, Arno Haase, and Simon Helsen. Model-driven
software development: technology, engineering, management. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
[8] Jan, Syed Roohullah, Faheem Dad, Nouman Amin, Abdul Hameed, and Syed Saad Ali
Shah. "Issues in global software development (communication, coordination and trust)—a
critical review." training 6, no. 7 (2016): 8.
[9] Khan, Fazlullah, Syed Roohullah Jan, Muhammad Tahir, Shahzad Khan, and Farman
Ullah. "Survey: Dealing Non-Functional Requirements at Architecture Level." VFAST
Transactions on Software Engineering 9, no. 2 (2016): 7-13.
[10] Jonsson, T., P. Lundberg, S. Maiti, and Y. Jiang-Häfner. "Converter technologies and
functional requirements for reliable and economical HVDC grid design." Cigre Canada,
Calgary, Canada (2013).