Choosing the right feature based on structural factors

Structural factors include technical and non-functional requirements that don't directly stem from the functional requirements of business users. In a broader setup, this includes things such as performance, maintainability, testability, and many more. However, in contrast to our discussion of functional factors, we will limit ourselves to items that are of special relevance to AI features.

Don't think this means you shouldn't consider performance, maintainability, or testability when designing for AI; we just don't want this guide to go on for hundreds of pages. Also, most of the considerations for these non-functional requirements are the same when you're designing for AI as when you're designing other complex features. You can see where we are in the overall framework in the following diagram:

Figure 9.4 – Structural factors

We will start by considering the need...