Question

What is a design document? What is included in a design document? How is it useful for training?

Answer 1

A design document is written by a software designer and it is given to the software development team as a guidance to the architecture of the software project. It provides additional details to those that have been already provided by the functional specification. A software design document is mostly accompanied with an architecture diagram and detailed feature specifications of the design. This will help in coordinating large team towards a single vision

The design document usually contains the following

• Data Design: It describes the structure that should be within the software. It should establish the relationships between the data objects and describe the choice of data structures.
• Architectural Design: This part will utilise the information flowing characteristics and then maps them into the program structure.
• Interface Design: The interface design explains the external and internal program interface design. It also describes the human interface of the software
• Procedural Design: This includes graphical, tabular and textual notations to describe the programming concepts.

The design document is a useful tool that facilitates a translation to the code. It is the blueprint for all the software engineering work. A design document is used for training purposes too. The design document would also include the objectives, scope and deliverables of the project. This can be utilised for training the software developers in whatever is the requirement. Specific skills needed for developing this project can be identified. Existing employees can be trained according to the needs of a specific project. This is the document that describes how the project will be build, hence this can be used for training the employees accordingly and making them understand what are the specifications required and the importance of the time of each of the deliverables.