Non-Functional Requirements Examples

By: Max Arbow, Senior Product Manager at Mondo Robot

In our past article, we defined the importance of functional and non-functional requirements gathering. Below are examples and categories of non-functional requirements:

Operability

• The system must be able to run on my iPhone X while in airplane mode.
• Most of my customers buy on their mobile devices.
• Integrate with my Active Directory and my inventory system.
• The app should be able to work on any web browser.
• The app can run natively on most handheld devices.

Multi-tenancy

• Needs to support multiple tenants without access to one another’s data.

Compliance

• We are required to be HIPAA and SOC2 compliant.
• PII/PHI app leakage needs to be reported to our legal team immediately.
• We sell in the UK and CA and need to observe GDPR/CCPA regulation.
• Needs to do routine checks to make sure we are ADA compliant.

Serviceability

• The app needs to have a ticketing system.
• Ability to manage users/roles/permission and change default global field values without having to go to you as a vendor.

Localization

• The app needs to support Spanish, English and Catalonian.
• The app should log events from the local time zone of the user.

Globalization

• We sell in the US and Canada and need to collect both currencies.
• Our site is in the UK, and need to change our hours and privacy policies to reflect that.

Accessibility

• We have seeing-impaired seniors actively using the application and so it should support high contrast visuals and screen reader devices.
• The content should simple and assume a 6th-grade reading level.
• It needs to support dark mode.
• Ensure we meet the WCAG 2.1 guidance and regularly tested.

Personalization

• Greet and present content to users that match their preferences/history.
• Trigger a special onboarding if it is a new user that has never logged in.

Traceability/Auditability/Logging

• Audit any changes made by users, so that I know who to ask if the information was not submitted correctly.
• Alert if the margin goes below 25% and analyze the root cause so that I can intervene as necessary.
• My IT team cares a lot about former employees having access to our internal apps. Can we run a regular report to make sure only current employees can access it?
• My IT team needs access to who logs in and when.
• I want to see a crash report on the app.
• Show a paper trail for any updates that users make to the data in my CRM.

Availability

• The app should generally be available 24/7/365, but in addition, we can’t have the app go down during peak season. We will lose a bunch of money if we can’t sell our product online during cyber Monday.
• I have users on the app during east coast business hours, please limit any maintenance windows to after 6pm Eastern and before 8am Eastern.

Portability

• I need to be able to push data to BigQuery for monthly reporting.
• When we upgrade from on-prem to the cloud, I don’t want to lose any historical information.

Interoperability

• My app data can be mapped over to my CRM.
• Use inventory service in real-time so that my systems don’t get out of sync.

Security

• Users must be forced to reset their passwords semi-annually.
• Provide two-factor authentication every time before accessing the app.
• Maintain a list of blacklisted users.
• Whitelist email addresses so that they don’t go into spam filters.
• Only direct managers and HR can see personal employee information.
• The system regularly upgrades patches to provide safeguards from viruses, worms, trojan horses, and other vulnerabilities.

Privacy

• Users should clearly understand and acknowledge the privacy policy before accessing the site.
• We need to capture acknowledgments of the privacy policy in the event we are audited.
• I should be able to opt out of cookies on the site.

Performance

• Any interaction between the user and the system shouldn’t exceed 2 seconds. Maybe we can cache some data and make it more performant.
• Searching through a large document needs to be fast. Even if you have to index content nightly.
• The system can handle at least 300 concurrent users from 9–5 am EST, and at least 150 concurrent users at all other times.

Session Concurrency

• I want to be able to have multiple tabs open at the same time with my user logged in so that I can multi-task.

Error/Exception Handling

• I don’t expect errors, but when I do, I think we should regularly review them and come up with messaging to the users when they happen.
• Any time a user drops from their shopping cart as they are paying, we need to know about it.
• If errors happen on runtime, we need to tell users to try again after x seconds.

Testability

• We have our own QA team that would like to be able to provision users.
• Can we make sure to run regular checks against the database to ensure nothing breaks when we load a new batch of contracts? Hopefully, it won’t let you push code until all checks are complete.

Storage

• Our cloud costs are pretty high, so let us know how much storage this thing will take up in the next 1–2 years.
• We have a firm record retention plan, and legally we need to maintain all transactional information for 5 years.

Scalability

• We only expect 10 users for now, but in a year’s time we want 10,000! Can the app handle that?
• We also want to accommodate 30 more store expansions and get into the direct-to-consumer market.

Monitoring

• If the app ever goes down, put up a notification to users and call us, no matter what time of day.

Configuration

• I need all my stores to accept all forms of payment but I want to be able to turn off and on ACH at certain points in the year.
• We want to be able to adjust certain pricing throughout the year to accommodate inventory or special promotions.

Validation

• You can’t submit an app unless all requirements are met. Otherwise it will waste hours of admin time to find out the applicant is disqualified.
• Only users above the age of x can provide consent to share their health information.

Transactional

• We need to be able to roll back any changes we make.

Others Areas to consider:

• Time to Market
• Cost
• Supportability/Maintainability/Resources
• Flexibility
• Usability

Unsplash: Dylan Gillis