Design is the second stage in Software Development Life Cycle.

The design stage includes two substages : HLD - High Level Design DLD - Detailed Level design A High-Level Design is diagramatic representation of a solution, platform, syste m, product, service, or process.It is important in mulit-project development and provides an overview to make sure that each supporting component design will be compatible with its neighbouring designs and with the big picture.The highest l evel solution design should briefly describe all platforms, systems, products,se rvices and processes that it depends upon and include any important changes that need to be made to them. A document that contains HLD will usually include a hi gh-level architecture diagram depicting the components, interfaces and networks that need to be further specified or developed. The purpose of this High Level Design (HLD) Document is to add the necessary det ail to the current project description to represent a suitable model for coding. This document is also intended to help detect contradictions prior to coding, a nd can be used as a reference manual for how the modules interact at a high leve l.The HLD documentation presents the structure of the system, such as the databa se architecture, application architecture (layers), application flow (Navigation ), and technology architecture. The HLD uses non-technical to mildly-technical t erms which should be understandable to the administrators of the system. The HLD will present all of the design aspects and define them in detail. It als o describe the user interface beging implemented, the hardware and software inte rface and the performance requirements. It includes design features and the arch itecture of the project and describe the non-functional attributes like security , reliability, maintainability, portability, reusability, application compatibil ity, resource utilization and service ability. HLD also provide answers to more complex questions, such as nonfunctional requirements. These requirements includ e system audit and control, extensibility, resilence, vertical and horizontal sc alability, multisite issues, and integration of third-party tools. Following steps can be followed in preparation of HLD: First step is to ascertain the components and then represent them, SRS is us ed as the base document for HLD. Identify the constituents (attributes and methods) of each class. Write a description of each constituent of identified classes, no matter how trivial each constituent seems to be. This is called the data dictionary. Establish the relationship between the classes. Some guidlines to design HLD are : It should be a diagram or set of diagrams with as few notes as possible. Start simple and at as high a level as possible. Contain all the key objects that must be secured and represent them generica lly. Contain all the key security relationships between objects. Serve to generate all security test cases and a starting point from which to generate the DLD.

Once the HLD is done, you should move to detailed level design, which is a graph

ical representation of the structures of software, that defines high level detai ls of each modules including module's interface (input and output data type), da ta structures and a list of any non-functional requirements. In short, DLD is pr oviding detailed information about each module. The detailed level design document for a project should provide a complete and d etailed specification of the design for the software that will be developed in t he project, including the classes, members, and non-member functions, and associ ations between classes that are involved. During the detailed level design phase the view of the application developed dur ing the high level design is broken down into modules and programs. The DLD will contain: - detailed functional logic of the module in pseudo code - database ta bles with all elements including their type and size - all interface details wit h complete API references (both requests and responses) - all dependency issues -error message listings - complete input and outputs for a module. DLD should contain a listing of the declarations of all the classes, non-memberfunctions, and class member functions that will be defined during the implementa tion stage, along with the associations between those classes and any other deta ils of those classes that are firmly determined by the detailed level design sta ge. Detailed-level design focuses on implementing the components as defined by t he high-level design. Whereas a component is a more-or-less "whole" piece of fun ctionality, the implementation of a component usually consists of many interrela ted pieces. A component may be implemented using object-oriented, structural, fu nctional, or other design method. Sometimes it encompasses outlining the various classes and methods that make up the design, so that it is clear how to attach the code to the skeleton. A DLD should be internally consistent describe the modules describe the purpose of each module define the interrelationship between the modules. identify all the interfaces to the modules describe the purpose the purpose and method of use of all interfaces to the modules. A Detailed Level Design contains: Physical database design - Regrouping of data set into various files/tables taking into account normalization of data Database engineering - Data access methods, optimization techniques, query c onstruction techniques etc are designed here User Interface Design - This section describes the managing of input devices , validating user input, handling errors, exceptions and displaying of appropria te messages, proving help and prompts, handling windows and fields scrolling wit hin windows, establishing connections between application software and the inter faces, allowing the users to customize the interface etc

Once the HLD is done, you should move to detailed level design, which is a graph ical representation of the structures of software, that defines high level detai

ls of each modules including module's interface (input and output data type), da ta structures and a list of any non-functional requirements. In short, DLD is pr oviding detailed information about each module. The detailed level design document for a project should provide a complete and d etailed specification of the design for the software that will be developed in t he project, including the classes, members, and non-member functions, and associ ations between classes that are involved. During the detailed level design phase the view of the application developed dur ing the high level design is broken down into modules and programs. The DLD will contain: - detailed functional logic of the module in pseudo code - database ta bles with all elements including their type and size - all interface details wit h complete API references (both requests and responses) - all dependency issues -error message listings - complete input and outputs for a module. DLD should contain a listing of the declarations of all the classes, non-memberfunctions, and class member functions that will be defined during the implementa tion stage, along with the associations between those classes and any other deta ils of those classes that are firmly determined by the detailed level design sta ge. Detailed-level design focuses on implementing the components as defined by t he high-level design. Whereas a component is a more-or-less "whole" piece of fun ctionality, the implementation of a component usually consists of many interrela ted pieces. A component may be implemented using object-oriented, structural, fu nctional, or other design method. Sometimes it encompasses outlining the various classes and methods that make up the design, so that it is clear how to attach the code to the skeleton. A DLD should be internally consistent describe the modules describe the purpose of each module define the interrelationship between the modules. identify all the interfaces to the modules describe the purpose the purpose and method of use of all interfaces to the modules. A Detailed Level Design contains: Physical database design - Regrouping of data set into various files/tables taking into account normalization of data Database engineering - Data access methods, optimization techniques, query c onstruction techniques etc are designed here User Interface Design - This section describes the managing of input devices , validating user input, handling errors, exceptions and displaying of appropria te messages, proving help and prompts, handling windows and fields scrolling wit hin windows, establishing connections between application software and the inter faces, allowing the users to customize the interface etc