Measuring perceived software quality

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Abstract

This paper presents a method for measuring customer's perception of software quality. We argue that, although the importance of the perceived product quality is recognised world-wide, there does not exist a rigorous method for measuring customer perception of product quality. This paper presents a method expanded to measure not only end-users' perception of the product, but also company employees' perception of the quality of the internal deliverables produced within the company. Additionally, in this paper we present examples of the method's application on a set of projects, in parallel with internal measurements, using a set of commonly used product metrics. Subsequently, we compare measurement results that are derived from customer perception measurements to results that are derived from internal measurements, and we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

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