Template for design documents

Marc Groenewegen (marcg@dinkum.nl)

May 5 2003

Document Information
Organisation Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU)
Project name Signature
Version 0.1
Status draft
Location mediate/signature/doc/db_design.xml
Audience Gerard van Wolferen, Hans Timmermans
Abstract:
The abstract gives a short description of the contents of this document. This document describes the design of the Signature database. The Signature database is part of the Signature subsystem. The database will be build using a linked list structure.

Table Of Contents

1 Introduction

2 List of definitions

3 General description

4 Detailed description

5 System integrity and error handling

6 Assumptions and dependencies

7 Design environment

8 Risks

1 Introduction

A description of the design is a translation of the requirements into the way the system will be built. This design document describes choices, considerations and descriptions of all parts of the system. This can be communication protocols, hardware platform, programming language, software tools and relevant information about the environment.

1.1 General remarks

1.2 Purpose

Describe the purpose of this document (not of the system we're designing) and the intended audience.

1.3 Scope

Describe project constraints and parts that are deliberately NOT described.

2 List of definitions

Explain all terms, abbreviations and information that can be considered unknown to the reader.

3 General description

3.1 System overview

Give an overview without too much detail of the system that is described in this document.

3.2 Context

Give a short description of the context in which the (sub)system is placed and how it relates to other (sub)systems.

4 Detailed description

Describe all details that are necessary for understanding the entire design. Organise the information into functional sections.

4.1 Hardware

Describe the hardware components

4.2 Software

Describe the software components

4.3 The world outside

Describe communication with other systems and what network, protocols and physical connections are used

4.4 Performance

The requirements specification describes the performance requirements. In this design document we describe how this is achieved.

4.5 User interface

Describe the presentation of data to the user and the interaction with the user. The requirements specification describes all intricacies of the look and feel, this design document describes how this is achieved.

5 System integrity and error handling

Describe the classes of errors that can be expected, what is done to prevent these from occurring and what is done to minimise the effects of errors. Also describe fault tolerance behaviour. The requirements specification describes what our system has to do when other systems fail, in this section we describe how this is accomplished.

6 Assumptions and dependencies

Describe assumptions made (if any) and if possible describe why they are assumptions and what they depend on or how they can be certified.

7 Design environment

This chapter lists the tools and resources used for the design and implementation phases.

7.1 Development tools

List all development tools, software packages, programming languages etc. used in the design and implementation phases and which purpose they serve.

8 Risks

Describe situations that may negatively influence the design and implementation. These can be technical issues like availability of a certain piece of equipment or resource risks like people or third parties.