Software Design Process

System Category

• Necessary System
  • Infrastructure
    • Processes

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System Brief

The process of designing software requires a Software Designer to perform research tasks, exploratory tasks, and deliver Software Design Documentation to engineers, educators, and other cooperatives.

Justification

• Necessary Systems
  • This process supports Information Technology Software.
• Quality of Life
  • This process improves the quality and consistency of software.
• Sustainability
  • This process improves the efficiency and consistency of software production.

System Function

This process is a subset of the Software Production Process.

There are three steps to the Software Design Process:

Discovery

The first step is to discover and understand the existing landscape of the software, including, but not limited to: users and their experience, technology and it’s limitations, existing software features.

User Research tell the designer who are the users, what information they need access to, and their experience using software to access the information.

Landscape Research tell the designer what current solutions exist, their range of features, and user sentiment about the existing solutions. This research will help the designer know what has been done already, what failures to avoid, and what opportunities still exist.

Research Analysis compiles all the research into an accessible format for anyone to understand the findings and trends from the raw research data.

Design

The second step is to explore changes to the software, and test changes with users to identify the most desirable and functional solution.

UX Maps are low-fidelity information about the software, detailing the information architecture, site maps, and user journeys. These are abstract charts to communicate the heuristic details of the software.

Design Systems are the standards of the software, these are the visual components of the GUI, the consistent language, and layouts.

GUIs are the high-fidelity information of the Graphical User Interface that represent the objects the user actually sees and interacts within the software.

Delivery

The last step is to document your discovery and design decisions in an accessible formats, including, but not limited to: engineers to produce and maintain the software, educators to instruct and assist users, etc.

Design System Documentation compiles the UX Maps, Design Systems, GUIs, and annotations to communicate the intentions of the software. A Software Engineer should be able to use this documentation as the blueprints when building the software into code.

System Output

The output from this process is a Software Design Documentation, which defines what a piece of software is supposed to look and feel like to the end user.

• This documentation can be distributed to Software Committees to be maintained and distributed to other Software Cooperatives.
• This documentation can be distributed to Software Engineers to define what needs to be built.
• This documentation can be distributed to Software Servicers to define the educational instructions for using the software.

System Input

• Resources
  • Tools
    • Standard IT Office Hardware
    • Standard IT Office Software
      • Specialized Software Documentation Software