A brief summary of design engineering

Design Engineering is a process used by software engineers which encompass the set of principles, concepts and practices that result in the development of a high quality system or product. Design Engineering is the point which actually has a great role in determining the quality of the software, and a careful review of the design process is useful in ensuring that the quality of the software remains high. Software design serves as the foundation for all software engineering steps that follow regardless of which process model is being employed. Without a proper design we risk building an unstable system – one that will fail when small changes are made (and we all know how likely small (or even big) changes can happen, one that may be difficult to test; one whose quality cannot be assessed until late in the software process, perhaps when critical deadlines are approaching and much capital has already been invested into the product. Making changes later down in the cycle to compensate for problems in the design process is not guaranteed to succeed, and is expensive.

Steps Involved In Design Engineering:

1. Identifying the need.
2. Defining the problem.
3. Conducting Research.
4. Narrowing Research
5. Analyzing set criteria
6. Finding alternative solutions
7. Analyzing possible solutions
8. Making a decision.
9. Presenting the product.
10. Communicating & selling the product.

During the design process the software specifications are transformed into design models that describe the details of the data structures, system architecture, interface, and components. Each design product is reviewed for quality before moving to the next phase of software development. At the end of the design process a design specification document is produced. This document is composed of the design models that describe the data, architecture, interfaces and components.