Alternative Approaches
One of the challenges in defining quality is that "everyone feels they understand it" and other definitions of software quality could be based on extending the various description of the concept of quality used in business (see a list of possible definition here.)
Dr. Tom DeMarco has proposed that "a product's quality is a function of how much it changes the world for the better.". This can be interpreted as meaning that functional quality and user satisfaction, is more important than structural quality in determining software quality.
Another definition, coined by Gerald Weinberg in Quality Software Management: Systems Thinking, is "Quality is value to some person." This definition stresses that quality is inherently subjective - different people will experience the quality of the same software very differently. One strength of this definition is the questions it invites software teams to consider, such as "Who are the people we want to value our software?" and "What will be valuable to them?"
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