Non-functionals, who cares? (30)

 I have to admit, I am sometimes a bit too cynical. And when I am in a cynical mood, and I am thinking about non-functionals and RE, I come to the conclusion that ‘we’ don’t care about non-functionals. Maybe we do care, but I do not see the results in lots of end product that ‘we’ are making for the customer. I still see a lot of products where for instance the maintainability, the performance and/or the usability really sucks. (I don’t even dare to talk about security.) We already saw several examples of this in previous blogs in this series.

When trying to find explanations I ask students in the requirements and test trainings I do, about this phenomenon. I mean the phenomenon that we say that the non-functionals are important, but we don’t see the wanted (and needed) quality in the end products. Because everyone I talk to, says that non-functionals are important. But still, the main focus is on the functionality.