Software design is together a process and a model. The design Softwares process is a series of steps that enables the designer to portray all aspects of the software for building. Imaginative skill, past knowledge, a sense of what makes “good” software, and on the whole commitment to quality are examples of critical success factors for a competent design. It is significant to note, however, that the design process is not always a straightforward process. The design model that is shaped for software provides a variety of different views of the computer software. Basic design principles facilitate the software engineer to navigate the design process.
Principals which are to be Adapted
Experts propose a set of principles for software design, which have been adapted and extended in the list below:
- A good designer should deem alternative approaches, judging each based on the necessities of the problem, the resources available to do the job.
- Because a single element of the design model can frequently be traced back to multiple requirements, it is essential to have a means for tracking how necessities have been satisfied by the design model.
- Systems are constructed using a set of design sample, many of which have likely been encountered before. These patterns should always be selected as an alternative to reinvention.
- The structure of the software design should, whenever possible, impersonate the structure of the problem domain.
- The design is uniform if it appears fully logical. In order to achieve this outcome, policy of style and format should be defined for a design team before design work commence.
- The design should be reviewed to minimize Conceptual errors
Well- designed software should never “blast”; it should be designed to hold unusual circumstances, and if it must finish processing, it should do so in an elegant manner. Even when detailed ceremonial designs are created for program components, the level of construct of the design model is higher than the source code. The only design conclusion made at the coding level should address the small implementation details that enable the procedural design to be coded. There is sometimes a tendency to focus on minutiae when the design is reviewed, missing the forest for the trees. A design team should make sure that major conceptual elements of the design (omissions, ambiguity, and inconsistency) have been addressed before upsetting about the syntax of the design model.
Design Deliberation
There are many aspects to deem in the design of a piece of software. The importance of each consideration should imitate the goals and expectations that the software is being shaped to meet. Some of these aspects are:
- The software is able to work with other products that are intended for interoperability with another product.
New potential can be added to the software without major changes to the original architecture. - The resulting software includes well defined, self-determining components which lead to better maintainability. The mechanism could be then executed and tested in isolation before being integrated to form a preferred software system.
- A measure of how easily bug fixes or functional modifications can be accomplished. High maintainability can be the creation of modularity and extensibility.
- The software is able to carry out a required function under stated conditions for a specified period of time.
- The skill to use some or the entire feature of the preexisting software in other projects with modest to no alteration.
- The software is able to function under stress or tolerate erratic or invalid input.