Design – Build – Run: Applied Practices and Principles for Production-Ready Software Development

2.1. The Quality Characteristics

The quality characteristics are often born out of a set of guiding principles, which set the scene or vision for the solution. The guiding principles are a set of high-level statements that outline the intent of the solution. Typically, there are around ten or so guiding principles for any undertaking, although this varies greatly depending on what they refer to. Some organizations use guiding principles to set out what matters to them, their employees, and their customers. Projects generally use guiding principles to set out key capabilities and characteristics of the solution. If the project is implementing a new version of an existing application, the guiding principles will often include capabilities that are an improvement over the previous version. For example, if scalability is limited or non-existent in the existing system, one guiding principle for the new system may be "highly scalable." The principles do not describe the exact functionality; instead, they capture a high-level manifesto that underpins the vision and goals for the future state solution. The following are examples of guiding principles:

• Positive user experience — Positively impact the user experience and satisfaction of the system while retaining and satisfying the business goals and requirements. Providing a rich and satisfying user experience is not just good for the customer — it's good for business and the company. With respect to websites and a global population, however, ...