Software design is a process of problem solving and planning for an application software package.  After the business objectives and requirements for the application are known, the software developer will commence the application design process.  The application design process includes both a high level Architecture and Wireline views of the application software.

The software design process comprises Software Requirements Analysis (SRA) , Software Requirements Specification (SRS), Architecture and Design.

The Software Requirements Analysis (SRA) step of the software design process produces software engineering specifications.  For a user centric SaaS application, the specifications may also include a user experience desin work or a storyboard to help visualize the proposed application software.  Software design work may also lead to flow chart production and sequence diagram production to express the flow of the application.   An object model and an entity-relationship diagram are often used to describe objects and data structure within the application.

A Software design may be platform-independent or platform-specific, depending on the needs of the  application.

Software design can be a complex process, involving many aspects, some of which can be in conflict with each other.  In Software design, the skill is in ballancing all of the issues in order to achieve a good balance between all of the issues involved.

Some of the issues to be considered in Software design include; Architecture, Functionality, Useability, Scalability, Performance, Security, Compatibility, Extensibility, Availability, Fault-Tolerance, Maintainability, Modularity etc.

The Software design documentation should be reviewed before application development takes place.  The review process may be augmented by a prototype.  Reviewing a Software Design prior to application development enables a multidisciplinary team of designers, subject matter experts and developers to enaure that the software is both useful and technically sound.