Software design is far from straightforward and simple. It needs experience, requires careful, attentive attention to the client, and foresight. Developers lacking in any one of these areas will make (sometimes devastating) mistakes. This will result in unsatisfied clients, cost overruns, unmet deadlines, etc.
You absolutely need to get software design right, and we’ve written this article to help you. We go over three necessary characteristics of good software design. Measure your software design against these characteristics, and if you feel like it is falling short in some aspect, correct it immediately before starting the development phase.
#1 Correctness
No matter how well-coded the software is, how bug-free it is, and how maintainable and secure it is, it’ll be worthless if it isn’t the software the client asked for. This is the painful truth you need to realize as soon as possible if you want to be in charge of a successful software house.
This is why you should also check for the correctness of the design before anything else. Does it jibe with what your client demanded? Does it satisfy their key requirements? Does it make room for all the features they want to be implemented? Your answer will ideally be a resounding yes to all three questions.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to accept unreasonable demands from the client. If they demand something that isn’t technically possible, would result in a cost overrun, etc. you need to make that explicitly clear to the client. It is much better to hammer out the details of the project during the planning phase than it is in later phases.
#2 Usability
Even if you follow the clients’ requirements to the letter, if the features aren’t usable, the client can’t make use of your software program at all. Of course, usability isn’t as straightforward as some of the other criteria on the list. A software program has to have a few qualities to be ‘usable’:
- Timeliness: The program needs to perform its tasks within a reasonable amount of time. The faster the program responds the better. If the program takes unusually long, it’ll become unusable. This is why it is important to test the performance of your program, especially the tasks that are used the most often.
- Easy navigability: What’s the point of implementing features if you can’t easily navigate to them? One of the key elements of usability is the UI and navigation. Once a program grows large and complex enough, it’ll become completely unusable without good navigation.
- Reliability: No matter how fast and easily navigable is your software, it’s useless if it doesn’t do its tasks reliably. This is especially true for software that handles sensitive data. Imagine if the software corrupted the data of tens of its users or it returned an error semi-regularly when using a feature. It might cost your client tens of thousands of dollars annually. We can’t stress enough how important it is for the software to be able to perform its job reliably.
- Uniformity in approach: When designing your website, there needs to be a coherent design philosophy. If each section of the software follows a different design philosophy and paradigm, it’ll be impossible to get used to. This is one of the reasons many websites fail, and it is just as important in desktop and mobile applications.
#3 Maintainability
When designing a software program, it isn’t only vital to answer all the immediate needs of your client, but you must also take the future into account. A good software design will allow for upgradability, regular maintenance, and backup and migration options.
These are crucial parts of good software design. Without these, no matter how good the software is when you hand it over, it might become unusable in a year with no way to extend its functionality or migrate the data. This would be extremely costly.
