How do software architects specify and validate quality requirements

Abstract. Software architecture is the result of a design effort aimed at ensuring a certain set of quality attributes. As we show, quality require-ments are commonly specified in practice but are rarely validated using automated techniques. In this paper we analyze and classify commonly specified quality requirements after interviewing professionals and run-ning a survey. We report on tools used to validate those requirements and comment on the obstacles encountered by practitioners when performing such activity (e.g., insufficient tool-support; poor understanding of user’s needs). Finally we discuss opportunities for increasing the adoption of automated tools based on the information we collected during our study (e.g., using a business-readable notation for expressing quality require-ments; increasing awareness by monitoring non-functional aspects of a system)