Tracing quality-related design decisions in a category-driven software architecture

Abstract

Quality properties, so-called non-functional ones, have a fundamental influence on the development of software systems because they constitute the decisive factors for the design of a system's software architecture. They earn a similar consideration like functional properties. For a high evolvability of the software systems, traceability supports changes by facilitating design decisions, software comprehension and coverage checks. In this paper a method for design traceability is presented, in which links both for functional and quality properties are established in similar ways. A software category based design method is used for a better alignment between requirements and design. As a consequence, the method leads to a reduced number of traceability links. The method has been successfully applied in the development and partial reengineering of an e-commerce system.