Quality in the formal sense should not exceed specifications. It should meet them and every point where specifications are not met is considered a defect.
Quality in the informal sense that is used in every day talk is how well a product/service fulfill the expectations of it's kind.
Which means that a bad chair and a good chair can both be of perfect quality if they do not deviate from the specifications. If there are no specifications the quality is unknown.
Formal usage of quality can be measured, informal cannot.
It's not exceeding specifications because maximum specifications are undefined. Supose you want a 1 meter +/- 1 cm long wooden board, a board can only get closer to exactly 1m, but it's meaningless to suggest it can exceed that specification. On the other hand you can get close to the edge of acceptance at 1meter +/- 0.9999 cm.
Aka, To be a low quality chair something must first be a Chair. A decomposed Apple is dirt not a low quality Apple.
A board 1cm off meets the specifications. A board .2cm off exceeds the specifications in terms of precision. The closer to a perfect meter, the more it exceeds the minimum.
You can't exceed "1m exactly", but that's the same as saying you can't exceed perfection. The specification is not perfection, the specification is "1cm slop". You can exceed it.
You're assuming the ideal item must sit at the midpoint of the specification. The ideal may be at 1m 0.1cm, but there is better tolerance for short boards than long ones.
In other words it's not the distance to the edge of acceptance that's important it's the distance from perfection as long as it's fit for use.
Oh, that post was you also... Then I was just very confused by the first post I replied to, and thought you were saying the opposite of your point with "it's not exceeding specifications".
> Quality in the informal sense that is used in every day talk is how well a product/service fulfill the expectations of it's kind.
When I think of "quality" in an informal sense, that's not what I think. I've got a cheap keyboard + mouse combo. They work perfectly well for what I use them for, but (I suspect) for less time, and enduring less abuse, than a higher-quality set of input devices would. I consider them low-quality, but suited-to-purpose. Something can be low-quality, but sufficient (i.e. fulfill my expectations, but be below the minimum specification level for what I'd call "quality").
edit: Although, I suppose that I'm talking more about my objective perception of quality than anything else.
Quality in the informal sense that is used in every day talk is how well a product/service fulfill the expectations of it's kind.
Which means that a bad chair and a good chair can both be of perfect quality if they do not deviate from the specifications. If there are no specifications the quality is unknown.
Formal usage of quality can be measured, informal cannot.