Empirical Quantitive Investigation of the Effect of GoF Design Patterns on the Quality of Software Systems
Somia Abufakher · International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications · 2026
Design patterns are universal, reusable fixes for common issues in software design. They are supposed to encourage better design choices by rep-urposing already-established successful solutions, saving cost and time. The purpose of the current study is to present quantitive evidence about the expected implications on software quality by employing GoF design patterns; 10 commonly applied patterns have been empirically assessed for their impact on software quality. The evaluated patterns are: Factory Method, Prototype, Singleton, Adapter, Composite, Decorator, Observer, State, Template Method, and Proxy. The study considers software quality attributes that match the intents of the subject design patterns; these attributes are: software maintainability, testability, reusability, simple design, sensitivity to change, and error-proneness. The empirical evaluation of patterns is performed by computing 10 software quality metrics for pattern classes that have been detected in 10 real open-source projects implemented with Java. The findings reveal that the evaluated patterns promote software quality, except for the classes of Prototype, Composite, and Singleton, which were often found not cohesive.