Attributes and metrics of internal quality that impact the external quality of object-oriented software: A systematic literature review

Quality metrics of software can be categorized into internal quality metrics, external quality metrics, and quality in use metrics. Although existing a close relationship between internal and external quality of software systems, there are no explicit evidences in literature of what are the attributes and metrics of internal quality that impact external quality. Thus, we carried out a systematic literature review for identifying that relationship. After the analysis of 664 papers, 12 papers were studied in depth. As result, we found 65 metrics related primarily to the maintainability, usability, and reliability quality characteristics and the main attributes that impact external metrics are size, coupling, and cohesion.