Essentials of Software Engineering, 5th Edition

8.1 Characterizing Design

Intuitively, we can talk about good designs and bad designs. We regularly use phrases such as “easy to understand,” “easy to change,” “low complexity,” or “easy to code from.” When pressed, however, we often find it quite difficult to define what a good design is, let alone attempt to measure the design-goodness attribute. In this chapter we will crystallize some of these thoughts and discuss ways to measure different designs. There is no one overriding definition of a good design. Much like quality, a good design is characterized by several attributes.

There are two often mentioned general characteristics that naturally carry over from the requirements:

• Consistency

• Completeness

Consistency across design is an important ...