World Journal of Research and Review (WJRR) ISSN:2455-3956, Volume-2, Issue-5, May 2016 Pages 50-55 50 www.wjrr.org Abstract—This paper presents a model for the technical quality evaluation of Rapid Application Development (RAD) software products in a visual environment. It addresses organizations, companies and final users that need to select in an effective and easy way the most appropriate software to develop their applications amongst those in the market. It also gives a guideline for the concrete instrumentation of the model features, such as ranking procedures. Finally, it discusses the results of the evaluation of three of these tools. Index Terms— Technical quality evaluation, Rapid Application Development tools, software product quality I. INTRODUCTION Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a method used for the elaboration of software products mainly based upon the continuous interactive prototyping and design of the system with a huge involvement and participation of final users by means of computerized tools [1]. Some papers and thesis deal with this subject mainly concerned upon the quality of the method and the resulting product, but poorly about how to select the proper RAD tool from those today in the market [2]. This article presents a method for the technical evaluation and selection of the more convenient RAD software in accordance with the organization´s individual purpose. To evaluate any software product, it is necessary first to establish its desired quality properties and then the manner of measuring them by means of a group of significant metrics [3], [4],[5], [6]. These will provide indicators, which willlead to a strategy for the technical evaluation of the product quality. It is important to do the measurements in an easy way so to interpret the results without any possible ambiguity [7], [8],[9], [13], [14]. Therefore, one must build a qualimetric model that identifies the quality components and their inter relations.Its objective is to facilitate the qualitative and quantitative Laura Silvia Vargas-Pérez, Instituto Tecnológico de Ciudad Madero, Ciudad Madero Tamaulipas, México Agustín Francisco Gutiérrez-Tornés, Facultad de Ciencias y Tecnología de la Información, Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero, Acapulco, México Edgardo Manuel Felipe-Riverón, Centro de Investigación en Computación, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Ciudad de México, México Inés Zambrano-Dávila, Facultad de Ciencias y Tecnología de la Información, Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero, Acapulco, México Ricardo Peña-Galeana, Facultad de Ciencias y Tecnología de la Información, Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero, Acapulco, México evaluation of these components.The qualimetric model generally represents the entirety of the evaluation elements. Usually a tree of hierarchical structure classifies them, where the characteristics appear in the higher level, the sub characteristics in the intermediate level, and the attributes in the lowest one. In this article, we present such a model and its implementation. II. TYPES OF MEASURES There are two types of evaluation objectives:  To identify problems that can be rectified, and  To compare the quality of a product with alternative products or against requirements. This research refers to the second objective. The type of required measurements will depend on the purpose of the evaluation. If the primary purpose is to detect and to correct deficiencies, many measurements can be made within the software to visualize and to control improvements. When comparingthequalityofaproductwithalternativeproductsoraga instrequirements,itisimportanttobasethespecificationoftheeva luationonaprecisequalimetricmodel,measurementmethods and scales orrange of levels for each metric[10], [11],[12], [13].The method presented here in, allows a comparative analysis among different types of Rapid Application Development tools in a visual environment from which the user will be able to select the most appropriate to fulfill its needs[14],[15]. III. STATEOFTHEARTANDRELATEDWORKS For some years a varied sort of quality measurement models mainly based upon international standards has been developed. These models are very useful, but they are usually very generic and so they should be adapted for their practical use. Previous works focuses on the evaluation of software development processes: Carballo [19]; Moreno and Lopez, 2004 [20]; Olsina and Covella, 2006 [21]; Piattini and Rolón, 2006 [22]; Pastor et al. 2006 [23] and others. Carballo [19] tries to estimate and control the quantitative administration of software projects. Moreno and Lopez [20] use software engineering metrics to evaluate grammatical analyzers, and focus the evaluation at the analysis process. Olsina and Covella [21] guide his efforts to the evaluation of Web application quality. Piattini and Rolón [22] deal in some of his works with the evaluation of the complexity of the business processes. Pastor et al. [23] presents a usability On the Technical Quality Evaluation of Rapid Application Development Software Products in a Visual Environment Laura Silvia Vargas-Pérez, Agustín Francisco Gutiérrez-Tornés, Edgardo Manuel Felipe-Riverón, Inés Zambrano-Dávila, Ricardo Peña-Galeana