An example of the use of ISO 9126

1. An example of the use of ISO 9126 Tor Stålhane IDI / NTNU

2. The customers’ quality view The PROFF project did a survey of quality factors’ importance for Norwegian companies that buy software. • Rank ISO 9126’s factors on a three point scale – 1 to 3 • Indicate the cost of the last software acquisition using three categories: • Category 1: les than NOK 10 001 • Category 2: NOK 10 001 to 50 000 • Category 3: more than NOK 50 001 • Indicate type of software in last acquisition: • COTS • Standardized software package • Tailor made software

3. ISO 9126 – Software quality

4. ISO 9004 – Service quality

5. Scores for all products pooled Top productcharacteristic

6. Scores according to product category Ranking for each software category 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3

7. Factor importance vs. price category Ranking for each price category

8. Changes over categories – 1 Product category: COTS => standardized software => tailor made software Product price: < 10 001 => 10 001 – 50 000 => > 50 000

9. Changes over categories – 2 Move from COTS products to tailor-made products • Product maintainability, service confidence and service capacity get more importance • Customers who buy tailored software do not expect the producer to put new, improved product versions on the market, except if they have a maintenance contract. • Maintenance is a long term commitment, the requirements on service responsiveness decreases. Price increases • Customers increase requirements on reliability and portability. • The customers’ need to protect their investment in expensive software systems. • They need to be able to port expensive software so that they do not have to buy new versions when the environments are changed.

10. Nordic Telecom company survey – 1 They asked their customers: • Would you buy from this company again? • Would you recommend others to buy from this company?

11. Nordic Telecom company survey – 2 The only case where we get a 100% “Yes” on the question “Would you recommend others to buy from this company?” is if the customer • Complained • Got a satisfactory response. If no complaints, the same question only got 87% yes. For the customers it is more important with a satisfactory service response to his problems than having no problems at all.

12. Conclusions – 1 • Software products are considered to be complex with a large potential to cause problems that the average user cannot handle. This lead to a focus on service quality. • Maintainability and portability are • not important for the average software customer. It is the producer’s responsibility to provide updated and enhanced versions of the software on the platform that they need. • important for the producer. They must provide the services that the customer requires. • Software customers behave in an economically rational way when they set priorities on quality requirements. • Their preferences can be deduced from simple economic relations. • If the pricing policy or market mechanisms change, so will the importance of each quality factor.

13. Conclusions – 2 The customers’ focus on service quality is an opportunity ,not a problem. The advice is: • Do not sell just a product; sell a product plus service, provided through personal contacts. • The personnel used to provide services must • know the customer’s applications • know his problems and needs. • show a genuine interest in that the customer reaps the benefits he expected from the product he bought.