An Approach to Integrating Non-functional Requirements into UML Design Models Based on NFR-Specific Patterns

Analyzing non-functional requirements (NFRs) and integrating their solutions into the design model is an important part of enforcing NFRs in the software development process. It is challenging to do this not only because the variety of basic non-functional requirement concepts and their corresponding solutions, but also the gap between the stage of requirement analysis and software design. In this paper, we propose a pattern-based approach to design NFRs, and integrate the design result into existing functional UML models. NFR-specific patterns which denote the general design of the NFR solutions are proposed to reuse the design knowledge, and aspect are automatically generated to integrate them into the existing functional model. Advantages of this approach include, filling the gap between NFRs analysis and implementation, reusing the experience of NFR design by patterns. Finally, we could obtain a more comprehensive design model considering both the functional requirements and non-functional requirements.