3 Terms and definitions

What this heading covers

The fifteen terms are the working vocabulary of a measurement programme, not a glossary bolted on. Product quality is defined against stated and implied quality needs under specific conditions, which is broader than meeting a requirement. A quality measure is the result of combining at least two quality measure elements through a measurement function, which fixes the arithmetic shape of every measure in clause 6. An ICT product is defined widely enough to include hardware, software, components and data, and explicitly excludes people and facilities. Accessibility, usability and user are imported from the human factors standards, which keeps the interaction measures tied to real users rather than to interface features.

Record position: clause page 3 of 6. The text is public in the free preview.

What the heading asks of a team

What to put in place before publication

1. Add the fifteen terms to the quality plan as the vocabulary the register uses, and correct any local term that means something else.
2. Check that a product quality result is not written as a requirement met or not met, because the definition is wider than a requirement.
3. Use the ICT product boundary when you scope a measurement, so data and hardware are not silently left out.
4. Keep the imported human factors terms in the accessibility and usability measures, rather than substituting interface feature counts.
5. Give the glossary to whoever writes the tender response, so the supplier and the acquirer mean the same thing by a measure.

Where teams usually fall short

• The word metric used for four different things, so nobody can tell whether a row is a base count or a combined measure.
• A quality statement that lists requirements met and calls that product quality, which the definition in the draft does not support.

What happens next

The fifteen definitions are collected on the glossary page, each with the clause it shapes. Clause 5 is the next public clause and it explains how the measures are meant to be used.