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Software Engineering

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  • Whilst non-functional requirements can become overly broad, to me that is not how they should be used. I make a distinction between functional requirements, which relate directly to the outcomes a feature aims to add, and non-functional requirements which relate more to expectations (often of the overall product) which need to be maintained. Examples of non-functionals to me (extending the shopping cart example used in another answer here): user data in transit must be encrypted, total request time should not exceed 200ms 95% of the time and should not exceed 2000ms 99.99% of the time. Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 21:18
  • @JesseBugden, but there always are a set of "overly broad requirements", some of which require a harmonious settlement to be devised between competing individual requirements, some of which might not even reveal themselves until there is about to be a gross violation of them, at which point all involved can suddenly see the existence of the possibility, and the importance of the unexpected requirements being met. As I say, mostly the distinction is between mechanically measurable and non-mechanically measurable, and the latter category often contains the most important criteria. Commented Aug 9, 2022 at 6:13