Integrated Specification of Quality Requirements in Software Product Line Artifacts

There are many calls from software engineering scholars to incorporate non-functional requirements as first-class citizens in the software development process. In Software Product Line Engineering emphasis is on explicit definition of functional requirements using feature models while non-functional requirements are considered implicit. In this paper we present an integrated requirements specification template for common quality attributes alongside functional requirements at software product line variation points. This approach implemented at analytical description phase increases the visibility of quality requirements obliging developers to consider them in subsequent phases. The approach achieves weaving of quality requirements into associated functional requirements through higher level feature abstraction method. This work therefore promotes achievement of system quality by elevating nonfunctional requirement specification. The approach is illustrated with an exemplar mobile phone family data storage requirements case study.