A Quality Model for Spreadsheets

TL;DR: This paper proposes a set of spreadsheet specific metrics to assess the quality of a spreadsheet in each of the software characteristics defined in the ISO/IEC 9126 standard that defines a generic quality model for software.

Abstract: In this paper we present a quality model for spreadsheets based on the ISO/IEC 9126 standard that defines a generic quality model for software. To each of the software characteristics defined in the ISO/IEC 9126, we associate an equivalent spreadsheet characteristic. Then, we propose a set of spreadsheet specific metrics to assess the quality of a spreadsheet in each of the defined characteristics. To obtain the normal distribution of expected values for a spreadsheet in each of the proposed metrics, we have executed them in the widely used EUSES spreadsheet corpus. Then, we quantify each characteristic of our quality model after computing the values of our metrics, and we define quality scores for the different ranges of values. Finally, to automate the quality assessment of a given spreadsheet, according to our quality model, we have integrated the computation of the metrics it includes in both a batch and a web-based tool.