What does verification in the SDLC primarily provide?

Verification in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a critical process that ensures the outputs of the design and development phases align with the specified requirements. The correct answer reflects this foundational aspect, indicating that verification provides objective evidence demonstrating that the design outputs meet predefined requirements.

This objective nature is vital as it involves systematic reviews, inspections, and testing protocols aimed at confirming that the software is designed and built correctly before it progresses to subsequent phases such as validation or deployment. In this context, the focus is on ensuring that what was intended in the planning and requirements stages is indeed what has been developed, thus minimizing the risk of defects and misalignments.

The other options address different aspects of software development or evaluation but do not align directly with the primary purpose of verification. For instance, subjective assessments of user satisfaction, while valuable, do not provide the objective evidence required for compliance with specified requirements. Similarly, testing system performance under load is more aligned with validation and performance testing rather than verification of design outputs. Comparing against industry benchmarks pertains to standardization and best practices but does not directly assess compliance with the unique requirements established for the software in question.