ISO/IEC 25010:2023 Quality Model: Updated Characteristics and What They Mean for Requirements
The revised ISO/IEC 25010 product quality model introduces 'Interaction Capability' as a new top-level characteristic and restructures several sub-characteristics affecting how engineers write quality requirements.
ISO/IEC 25010:2023 — What's New
The ISO/IEC 25010 product quality model has been revised. For systems engineers writing non-functional requirements, the updates matter.
New top-level characteristic — Interaction Capability: Replaces "Usability" with a broader concept covering learnability, operability, user error protection, user engagement, and accessibility as sub-characteristics.
Restructured security sub-characteristics: Confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, accountability, and authenticity are now better-defined with clearer guidance on how to specify and verify each.
Practical impact: If your requirements reference ISO 25010 quality characteristics by name (common in regulated domains), you may need to update them. The new structure gives better hooks for connecting requirements to test criteria.
Limitations: Like all ISO quality models, 25010 is a taxonomy for organizing thought, not a prescriptive specification method. It works best as a checklist for completeness reviews, not a requirements template.