The ultimate goal of the SDL-SAFE was to develop an efficient solution for SDL systems quality assessment. The quality improvement of the SDL designs the following benefits for the user members: The design, implementation and testing costs can be sufficiently reduced, the accuracy of testing results can be improved, reliable SDL designs that lead to efficient application systems would be produced. Thus, in order to achieve the goal of providing an efficient toolset that would offer to the users all these benefits, extensive studies were performed especially on mature SDL specifications in order to properly:
- Identify their merits and;
- To verify the assessment techniques applicability to the entire SDL system development process at different phases of their life cycles.
The five user members of the consortium evaluated the document and software deliverables by adapting their existing SDL development methodologies to accommodate the tool. PR files from a range of different protocol profiles were used and are presented in the paragraphs of this report, which is the assessment report of the user trial findings and user feedback. The report includes the comments of experienced test engineers on the efficiency of the solutions and whether they confirm or contradict perception of high and low quality PR files. It also includes recommendations, enhancements to SDL system development cycle and guidelines on tool use.
The aim of the Trial and Assessment report is to evaluate the methodology document and the produced tools of the SDL-SAFE toolset. The user evaluation results are the outcomes of the SME user field trials of the document and tool to a range of different SDL systems. Additionally, the user trials enabled to formulate clear recommendations on the role of the quality assessment in each phase of the SDL system design cycle.
The SMEs tested the effectiveness of both the methodology of the tool and of the tool itself. This was done in the prospect of assessing and improving the SDL implementation process. They indicated the level of engineer acceptance of its findings. Quality assessment results presented for draft and validated SDL systems. Emphasis was given on whether the tool provides confirmation of good style practices.
In addition, the added value of the automated quality assessment approach was compared to other methods for SDL systems quality improvement. The feedback and results from the tool evaluation task led to an optimised/error-free version of the SDL-SAFE tool. In this step, the qualitative performance of the tool was enhanced and its reliability was improved.
Based on initial experience in the field trial, the feedback on the functionality and technical performance of the tool was exploited and the tool was optimised according to these results. Thus, the system was enhanced as necessary.