What are data design, interface design, report design, form design?

DATA DESIGN

- Data design is a software engineering task.
- It creates a model of the data in a more implementation specific representation.
- Data design is a process of gradual refinement, from the coarse to the precise data structures and processes that provide it.
- Data design includes identifying the data, defining specific data types and storage mechanisms, and ensuring data integrity.

INTERFACE DESIGN

- Interface design comprises of designing elements that facilitate how software communicates with humans, devices and other systems that interoperate with it.
- Consistency should be maintained.
- Designing good forms, reports and screens are critical in determining how the system will be acceptable to end-users.

REPORT DESIGN

Reports can be placed on an ordinary paper, continuous forms, screen-based or microfilm or microfiche. Things that should be kept in mind while designing reports are:
- Number of Copies and Volume
- Report Generation
- Report Frequency
- Report Figures
- Media

FORM DESIGN
Forms are usually used for input when a workstation is not available. The following are the steps in designing forms.
- Instructions should appear on the form except when the same person fills itover and over again.
- Use familiar words.
- The answer space should be enough for user to comfortably enter all necessary information.
- Lower case print is easier to read that uppercase.

How is data designed at architectural and component level?

Data Design at Architectural Level

Data design translates data objects defined during analysis model into data structures at the software component level and, when necessary,a database architecture at the application level.
There are small and large businesses that contains lot of data. There are dozens of databases that serve many applications comprising of lots of data. The aim is to extract useful information from data environment especially when the information desired is cross functional.
Techniques like data mining is used to extract useful information from raw data. However, data mining becomes difficult because f some factors:
- Existence of multiple databases.
- Different structures.
- Degree of detail contained with databases.Alternative solution is concept of data warehousing which adds an additional layer to data architecture. Data warehouse encompasses all data used by a business. A data warehouse is a large, independent database that serve the set of applications required by a business. Data warehouse is a separate data environment.

Data Design at Component Level

It focuses on representation of data structures that are directly accessed by one or more software components. Set of principles applicable to data design are:
- Systematic analysis principles applied to function and behavior should also be applied to data.
- All data structures and operations to be performed on each should be identified.
- The content of each data object should be defined through a mechanism that should be established.
- Low level data design decisions should be deferred until late in design process.
- A library of data structures and operations that are applied to them should be developed.
- The representation of data structure should only be known to those modules that can directly use the data contained within the structure.
- Software design and programming language should support the specification and realization of abstract data types.