Design Specification

Table of Contents

1 Scope
2 Reference Documents
3 Design Description
4 Modules
5 File Structure and Global Data
6 Requirements cross reference
7 Test provisions
8 Transfer Considerations
9 Special Notes
10 Appendices

1 Scope

Describe the overall scope of the design effort. Much of the information contained in this section is derived from the LCA and the Requirements Specification. Specific references to supporting documentation are made in section 2.

1.1 System objectives

1.2 Hardware, software and human interfaces

1.3 Major software functions

1.4 Externally defined database

1.5 Major design constraints, limitations

2 Reference Documents

2.1 Existing software documentation

2.2 System documentation

2.3 Vendor (hardware or software) documents

2.4 Technical reference

3 Design Description

Provide detailed description of the design. Use data flow diagrams or other data representations developed during requirements analysis and refined during design to derive software structure. Also provide interface descriptions.

3.1 Data description

3.1.1 Review of data flow

3.1.2 Review of data structure

3.2 Derived program structure

3.3 Interfaces within structure

4 Units; for each unit

As preliminary design evolves into detail design, describe procedural functions of groups of units or units with processing narratives. The lowest level units are separately addressable elements of software such as subroutines, functions or procedures.

4.1 Processing narrative

4.2 Interface description

4.3 Design language (or other) description

4.4 Units used

4.5 Data organization

4.6 Comments

5 File Structure and Global Data

Describe the data organization including file structures maintained on storage media and global data. Provide a cross reference that associates individual modules to files or global data.

5.1 External file structure

5.1.1 Logical structure

5.1.2 Logical record description

5.1.3 Access method

5.2 Global data

5.3 File and data cross reference

6 Requirements cross reference

Provide a requirements cross reference matrix to establish that all requirements are satisfied by the software design, and to indicate which units are critical to the implementation of specific requirements.

7 Test provisions

Once software structure and interfaces have been established, develop guidelines for testing of individual modules and integration of the entire system.

7.1 Test guidelines

7.2 Integration strategy

7.3 Special considerations

8 Transfer Considerations

Requirements and considerations for software assembling and packaging for the library are described. There may be special constraints which dictate a modification of the design. Also describe the approach to be used for tranferring software to the library.

9 Special Notes

Provide supplementary data such as algorithm descriptions, alternative procedures, tabular data, or other document excerpts in this and the next section.

10 Appendices