Quality attributes use in architecture design decision methods: research and practice

Over the past ten years software architecture has been perceived
as the result of a set of architecture design decisions rather than the elements
that form part of the software design. As quality attributes are considered
major drivers of the design process to achieve high quality systems, the design
decisions that drive the selection and use of specific quality properties and vice
versa are closely related. Consequently, quality attributes must play a role for
decision making processes and be documented alongside with the decisions
captured. Consequently, we conduct a systematic literature review to study
the importance and impact of the relationships between quality attributes
and architecture design decisions and to what extent existing architecture
knowledge management methods and tools deal with the decisions that affect
the quality of a system. We also report on the challenges and future research
paths for architectural knowledge management methods and tools. Our results
reveal important explicit relationships between both software artifacts, the role
of uncertainty in decision making and empirical studies reporting the use of
quality attributes in architecture knowledge management activities.