Software Component Design

Definition

Software design is the design subactivity involving the design of the software components of an application.

Goals

• Produce, document, and maintain the detailed tactical structure and behavior of the application’s software components.

Objectives

The typical objectives of software design are to:

• Determine the logical structure of the software components.
• Maximize the quality of the software component design:
  • In terms of correctness, completeness, consistency, and understandability.
  • To meet the requirements (operational, informational, and quality).
  • To meet the design constraints, and
  • To conform to the database and information architectures.
• Maximize the productivity of the software development team (e.g., reuse of existing designs, reuse of design conventions, and existence of example documents).

Examples

Typical examples of software component design include the design of:

• Application-specific software components.
• Reusable software components.

Preconditions

Software component design typically may begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The initiation phase has started.
• The software development team is initially staffed and adequately trained in design.
• The following documents are largely complete and are relatively stable:
  • Requirements Documents:
    • Application Vision Statement
    • Requirements Executive Summary
    • System Requirements Specification
    • External API Specification
    • Glossary
    • Domain Model Document
  • Architecture Documents:
    • System Architecture Document
    • Information Architecture Document
    • Software Architecture Document

Tasks

Software component design typically involves the following producers performing the following design tasks in an iterative, incremental, parallel and time-boxed manner:

• Software Development Team, which performs:
  • Design Reuse
  • Design Prototyping
  • Design Production
  • Design Refactoring
  • Design Documentation

Work Products

Software component design typically results in the production of all or part of the following design work products:

• Diagrams:
  • Aggregation Diagram
  • Class Diagram
  • Collaboration Diagram
  • Inheritance Diagram
  • Sequence Diagram
  • State Transition Diagram
• Documentation:
  • Class Responsibility Collaborator Card
  • Javadoc
  • Software Design Document
• Prototypes:
  • Software Component Prototype

Guidelines

• TBD