A decision-making tool to support architectural designs based on quality attributes
Italo Carlo Lopes Silva, Patrick H. S. Brito, Baldoíno Fonseca dos Santos Neto, Evandro De Barros Costa, André Almeida Silva · 2015
The success of a software project is strongly related with architectural design. However, designing the right Software Architecture is a very subjective task and takes a long time, being much influenced by architect's experience and the quality of requirements engineering. This architectural knowledge, usually, is not documented, since it is considered tacit knowledge of architects or other stakeholders, and eventually dissipates. The objective of this paper is to present a tool that supports young architects by recommending a suitable architectural style, based on the system's requirements, particularly the quality attributes of the system. The tool encompasses both trade-off resolution over quality attributes and recommendation of architectural styles based on quality attributes. The proposed solution has been evaluated in the context of a specific domain of Learning Management System (LMS), in order to illustrate the tool support in the execution of an architectural design process.