Software Architect's Handbook

Sketching the architecture design

Software architectures are commonly documented through the creation of architecture views. Architecture views are representations of a software architecture that are used to document it and communicate it to various stakeholders. Multiple views of an architecture are typically required, as a software architecture is too complex to be represented in a single, comprehensive model.

Formal documentation of a software architecture through views will be covered Chapter 12, Documenting and Reviewing Software Architectures, and is not typically done as part of the design process. While that type of documentation comes afterward, informal documentation, in the form of sketches, should take place during the architecture ...