Here’s a post I wrote for work about non-functional requirements (NFRs). It’s a dry topic, but one that I’m quite interested in. Sadly.

One thing I struggled with was the impact that an awful name has on a concept. The name “non-functional” makes the concept very slippery. Not only does it fail to signify the importance of the idea, it seems to have the opposite effect of forcing it out of the mind. Terms like “application requirements” and “system requirements” are better substitutes for “functional” and “non-functional” because they suggest that those requirements are orthogonal to each other and don’t oppose each other.

However, as dysfunctional as it is, “non-functional” seems to be the accepted term.