Introduction to

software design

2013 E.C
 Introduction
 Software design is an iterative process through which requirements are
translated into a blueprint for constructing the software.
 Initially, the blueprint depicts a holistic view of software. During the design
process the software specifications are transformed into design models.
 Models describe the details of the data structures, system architecture,
interface, and components.
 Each design product is reviewed for quality before moving to the next phase
of software development. At the end of the design process a design model
and specification document is produced.
Cont.…
 Software design is both a process and a model.
 The design process is a sequence of steps that enables the designer to describe
all aspects of the software for building.
 Creative skill, past experience, a sense of what makes "good" software and an
overall commitment to quality are examples of critical success factors for a
competent design.
 It begins by representing the totality of the thing that is to be built (e.g., a
three-dimensional rendering of the house); slowly, the thing is refined to
provide guidance for constructing each detail
Cont…
 Generally, design is about how to build a system (answers “HOW?”)-
Specifying different parts of the software, and how they will fit together.
 From a project management point of view, software design can be conducted
in two main steps:
 Preliminary Design: Concerned with the transformation of requirements into data
and software architecture.
 Detail Design: Focuses on refining the architectural representation, and lead to
detailed data structure and algorithmic representations of software.
 Three main design activities in the design phase are:
 Data design,
 Architectural design and
 Procedural design. In addition, many modern applications have a distinct interface
design activity. Interface design establishes the layout and interaction mechanisms
for human-machine interaction.
Cont.…
 Data Design /Class Design : Objective of Data Design is to transform the
information domain into data structures. Eg: Entity Relationship diagrams,
Data dictionary, abstract data types and Data structures.
 Architectural Design: Identify the overall structure of the system, the
principal components (sometimes called sub-systems or modules), their
relationships and how they are distributed.
 Procedural/Component Design: Objective is to transform structural
components into a procedural/component description of the software. This
step occurs after the data and program structures have been established, i.e.
after architectural design
Cont…
Design process

 Any design may be modeled as a directed graph made up

of entities with attributes which participate in
relationships.
 The system should be described at several different levels
of abstraction. Design takes place in overlapping stages.
 It is artificial to separate it into distinct phases but some
separation is usually necessary.
Cont..
Cont…

Phases in the Design Process

 Architectural design- Identify sub-systems
 Abstract specification -Specify sub-systems
 Interface design -describe sub-system interfaces
 Component design -decompose sub-systems into
components
 Data structure design -design data structures to hold
problem data
 Algorithm design -design algorithms for problem functions
Cont.…
 Design activities and product
Stages of Design
 Problem understanding-Look at the problem from different angles to
discover the design requirements.
 Identify one or more solutions-Evaluate possible solutions and choose the
most appropriate depending on the designer's experience and available
resources.
 Describe solution abstractions- Use graphical, formal or other descriptive
notations to describe the components of the design.
 Repeat process for each identified abstraction until the design is expressed in
primitive terms.
Design strategies

 Functional Design: The system is designed from a

functional viewpoint.
 The system state is centralized and shared
between the functions operating on that state.
 Object-Oriented Design: The system is viewed as a
collection of interacting objects.
The system state is decentralized and each object
manages its own state.
 Objects may be instances of an object class and
communicate by exchanging messages.
Objective of design

 The design must implement all of the explicit

requirements contained in the analysis model, and it must
accommodate all of the implicit requirements desired by
the customer.
 It must be a readable, understandable guide for those who
generate code and for those who test and subsequently
support the software.
 The design should also provide a complete picture of the
software, addressing the data, functional, and behavioral
domains from an implementation perspective.
Cont.…

 Good design leads to software that is:

➢ Correct-does what it should.
➢ Robust- tolerant of misuse, e.g. faulty data,
➢ Flexible-adaptable to shifting requirements,
➢ Reusable-cut production costs for code,
➢ Efficient-good use of processor and memory,
➢ also should be Reliable and Usable.
Design Principles

 Design principles enable the software engineer to navigate the design

process. which have been adapted and extended in the following list:
❖ The design process should not suffer from "tunnel vision." A
good designer should consider alternative approaches, judging each
based on the requirements of the problem, the resources available to
do the job.
❖ The design should be traceable to the analysis model. Because a
single element of the design model can often be traced back to multiple
requirements, it is necessary to have a means for tracking how requirements
have been satisfied by the design model.
❖ The design should not reinvent the wheel. Systems are constructed
using a set of design patterns, many of which have likely been encountered before.
These patterns should always be chosen as an alternative to reinvention.
Cont…

The design should "minimize the intellectual distance" between the software
and the problem as it exists in the real world. That is, the structure of the
software design should, whenever possible, mimic the structure of the problem
domain.
 The design should exhibit uniformity and integration. A design is uniform if it
appears fully coherent. In order to achieve this outcome, rules of style and
format should be defined for a design team before design work begins
 The design should be structured to accommodate change. The design concepts
discussed in the next section enable a design to achieve this principle.
Cont….

 The design should be structured to degrade gently, even when aberrant

data, events, or operating conditions are encountered. Well- designed
software should never "bomb"; it should be designed to accommodate unusual
circumstances, and if it must terminate processing, it should do so in a
graceful manner.

 Design is not coding, coding is not design. Even when detailed procedural
designs are created for program components, the level of abstraction of the
design model is higher than the source code. The only design decisions made
at the coding level should address the small implementation details that
enable the procedural design to be coded.
Cont…

 The design should be assessed for quality as it is being created, not after
the fact. A variety of design concepts and design measures are available to
assist the designer in assessing quality throughout the development process.

 The design should be reviewed to minimize conceptual (semantic) errors.

There is sometimes a tendency to focus on minutiae when the design is

reviewed, missing the forest for the trees. A design team should ensure that
major conceptual elements of the design (omissions, ambiguity, in
consistency) have been addressed before worrying about the syntax of the
design model.
Design Considerations

 There are many aspects to consider in the design of a piece of

software. The importance of each consideration should reflect the
goals and expectations that the software is being created to meet.
Some of these aspects are:
 Compatibility - The software is able to operate with other products
that are designed for interoperability with another product. For
example, a piece of software may be backward compatible with an
older version of itself.
 Extensibility - New capabilities can be added to the software
without major changes to the underlying architecture.
Cont….
 Modularity - the resulting software comprises a well defined,
independent component which leads to better maintainability. The
components could be then implemented and tested in isolation before
being integrated to form a desired software system. This allows
division of work in a software development project.
 Fault-tolerance - The software is resistant to and able to recover
from component failure.
 Maintainability - A measure of how easily bug fixes or functional
modifications can be accomplished. High maintainability can be the
product of modularity and extensibility.
 Reliability (Software durability) - The software is able to perform a
required function under stated conditions for a specified period of
time.
Cont…

 Reusability - The ability to use some or all of the aspects of the preexisting
software in other projects with little to no modification.
 Robustness - The software is able to operate under stress or tolerate
unpredictable or invalid input. For example, it can be designed with a
resilience to low memory conditions.
 Security - The software is able to withstand and resist hostile acts and
influences.
 Usability - The software user interface must be usable for its target
user/audience. Default values for the parameters must be chosen so that they
are a good choice for the majority of the users.
Cont..

 Portability - The software should be usable across a number of different

conditions and environments.
 Scalability - The software adapts well to increasing data or number of users.
 Performance - The software performs its tasks within a time-frame that is
acceptable for the user, and does not require too much memory.
User Interface Design

 User interface is the first impression of a software system from the user’s
point of view. Therefore any software system must satisfy the requirement of
user.
 Functions and Features of UI
 User Interface (UI) mainly performs two functions −
 Accepting the user’s input
 Displaying the output
Cont…
 User interface plays a crucial role in any software system. It is possibly the
only visible aspect of a software system as:
 Users will initially see the architecture of software system’s external user interface
without considering its internal architecture.
 A good user interface must attract the user to use the software system without
mistakes. It should help the user to understand the software system easily without
misleading information. A bad UI may cause market failure against the competition
of software system.
 UI has its syntax and semantics. The syntax comprises component types such as
textual, icon, button etc. and usability summarizes the semantics of UI. There are
basically two major kinds of user interface − a) Textual b) Graphical.
 Software in different domains may require different style of its user interface
Graphical User Interface

 A graphical user interface is the most common type of user interface available
today.
 It is a very user friendly because it makes use of pictures, graphics, and icons
hence why it is called 'graphical'.
 It is also known as a WIMP interface because it makes use of −
 Windows − A rectangular area on the screen where the commonly used applications
run.
 Icons − A picture or symbol which is used to represent a software application or
hardware device.
 Menus − A list of options from which the user can choose what they require.
 Pointers − A symbol such as an arrow which moves around the screen as user moves
the mouse. It helps user to select objects.
Elements of UI

 To perform user interface analysis, the practitioner needs

to study and understand four elements:
 The users who will interact with the system through the interface
 The tasks that end users must perform to do their work
 The content that is presented as part of the interface
 The work environment in which these tasks will be conducted
Levels of UI Design
 The task to be performed and then can be divided, which are assigned to the
user or machine, based on knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of
each.
 The design of a user interface is often divided into four different levels.
 The conceptual level − It describes the basic entities considering the user's view
of the system and the actions possible upon them.
 The semantic level − It describes the functions performed by the system i.e.
description of the functional requirements of the system, but does not address how
the user will invoke the functions.
 The syntactic level − It describes the sequences of inputs and outputs required to
invoke the functions described.
 The lexical level − It determines how the inputs and outputs are actually formed
from primitive hardware operations.
Steps of UI Design
 User interface design is an iterative process, where
all the iteration explains and refines the information
developed in the preceding steps.
 General steps for user interface design −
❖ Defines user interface objects and actions (operations).
❖ Defines events (user actions) that will cause the state of the
user interface to change.
❖ Indicates how the user interprets the state of the system
from information provided through the interface.
❖ Describe each interface state as it will actually look to the
end user.
User Interface Development Process

 It follows a spiral process as shown in the following diagram:

Cont…
 Interface Analysis: It concentrates or focuses on users, tasks,
content, and work environment who will interact with the system. It
defines the human - and computer-oriented tasks that are required to
achieve system function.
 Interface Design: It defines a set of interface objects, actions, and
their screen representations that enable a user to perform all defined
tasks in a manner that meets every usability objective defined for the
system.
 Interface Construction: It starts with a prototype that enables usage
scenarios to be evaluated and continues with development tools to
complete the construction.
Cont…

 Interface Validation: It focuses on the ability of the interface to implement

every user task correctly, accommodate all task variations, to achieve all
general user requirements, and the degree to which the interface is easy to
use and easy to learn.
 User Interface Models
 When a user interface is analyzed and designed following four models
are used:
❖ User Profile Model: Created by a user or software engineer, which
establishes the profile of the end-users of the system based on age,
gender, physical abilities, education, motivation, goals, and personality. It
Considers syntactic and semantic knowledge of the user and classifies
users as novices, knowledgeable intermittent and knowledgeable frequent
users.
❖ Design Model: Created by a software engineer which incorporates data,
architectural, interface, and procedural representations of the software.
It is derived from the analysis model of the requirements and controlled
by the information in the requirements specification which helps in
defining the user of the system.
Cont…

 Implementation Model: Created by the software implementers who work on

look and feel of the interface combined with all supporting information
(books, videos, help files) that describes system syntax and semantics.
 It Serves as a translation of the design model and attempts to agree with the
user's mental model so that users then feel comfortable with the software
and use it effectively.
 User's Mental Model: Created by the user when interacting with the
application. It contains the image of the system that users carry in their
heads.
 Often called the user's system perception and correctness of the description
depends upon the user’s profile and overall familiarity with the software in
the application domain.
 Design Considerations of User Interface

 User Centered: A user interface must be a user-centered product which

involves users throughout a product’s development lifecycle. The prototype of
a user interface should be available to users and feedback from users, should
be incorporated into the final product.
 Simple and Intuitive: UI provides simplicity and intuitiveness so that it can be
used quickly and effectively without instructions. GUI is better than textual
UI, as GUI consists of menus, windows, and buttons and is operated by simply
using mouse.
 Place Users in Control: Do not force users to complete predefined sequences.
Give them options—to cancel or to save and return to where they left off. It
use terms throughout the interface that users can understand, rather than
system or developer terms.
Cont..
 Transparency: UI must be transparent that helps users to feel like they are
reaching right through computer and directly manipulating the objects they are
working with. The interface can be made transparent by giving users work
objects rather than system objects
 Use Progressive Disclosure: Always provide easy access to common features
and frequently used actions. Hide less common features and actions and allow
users to navigate them. Do not try to put every piece of information in one
main window. Use secondary window for information that is not key
information.
 Consistency: UI maintains the consistency within and across product, keep
interaction results the same, UI commands and menus should have the same
format, command punctuations should be similar and parameters should be
passed to all commands in the same way.
 Cont.…
 Integration: The software system should integrate smoothly with other
applications such as MS notepad and MS-Office. It can use Clipboard commands
directly to perform data interchange.
 Component Oriented: UI design must be modular and incorporate component
oriented architecture so that the design of UI will have the same requirements as
the design of the main body of the software system.
 Customizable: The architecture of whole software system incorporates plug-in
modules, which allow many different people independently extend the software.
It allows individual users to select from various available forms in order to suit
personal preferences and needs.
 Reduce Users’ Memory Load: Do not force users to have to remember and
repeat what the computer should be doing for them.
 Separation: UI must be separated from the logic of the system through its
implementation for increasing reusability and maintainability.