Home » Software Engineering

Characteristics of a good software design | Software Engineering

In this tutorial, we will learn about the characteristics of a good software design must-have. We will first mention these characteristics and then will define each of them in brief. By Monika Sharma Last updated : April 05, 2023

For good quality software to be produced, the software design must also be of good quality. Now, the matter of concern is how the quality of good software design is measured? This is done by observing certain factors in software design. These factors are:

1. Correctness
2. Understandability
3. Efficiency
4. Maintainability

Now, let us define each of them in detail,

1) Correctness

First of all, the design of any software is evaluated for its correctness. The evaluators check the software for every kind of input and action and observe the results that the software will produce according to the proposed design. If the results are correct for every input, the design is accepted and is considered that the software produced according to this design will function correctly.

2) Understandability

The software design should be understandable so that the developers do not find any difficulty to understand it. Good software design should be self- explanatory. This is because there are hundreds and thousands of developers that develop different modules of the software, and it would be very time consuming to explain each design to each developer. So, if the design is easy and self- explanatory, it would be easy for the developers to implement it and build the same software that is represented in the design.

3) Efficiency

The software design must be efficient. The efficiency of the software can be estimated from the design phase itself, because if the design is describing software that is not efficient and useful, then the developed software would also stand on the same level of efficiency. Hence, for efficient and good quality software to be developed, care must be taken in the designing phase itself.

4) Maintainability

The software design must be in such a way that modifications can be easily made in it. This is because every software needs time to time modifications and maintenance. So, the design of the software must also be able to bear such changes. It should not be the case that after making some modifications the other features of the software start misbehaving. Any change made in the software design must not affect the other available features, and if the features are getting affected, then they must be handled properly.

---