Software Design Methodology

2 Design Quality

This chapter addresses the question of what constitute a good design. As discussed

in Chapter 1, a design is essentially a plan to bring about a man-made artefact.

Therefore, there are two facets of the quality of a design. The first is the quality

related to the product it brings about. The second is the quality related to the

process of bringing about the product. Of course, these two facets are closely

related. The objectives of the chapter are:

y To understand the quality of software systems;

y To understand how design affects software quality;

y To understand the quality attributes of software design.

The chapter is organised as follows. In section 2.1, we first briefly review the

theories about software quality. In section 2.2, we discuss the impact of design on

software quality. In section 2.3, we discuss the quality attributes of software

design.