Design Space

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Definition

A design space identifies key functional and structural choices made in creating a system design. It classifies the alternatives available for each choice. In other words, design spaces capture and classify architectural alternatives.

Rules can relate choices in a design space.

Notion of a Design Space

A design space can be thought of as a multi-dimensional space, where each software system appears as a data point.

Each dimension represents one variation in a system characteristic or design choices.

Values on each dimension represent alternative choices.

Distance and order are generally not important to design space dimensions.

Uses of Design Space

• Design space allows formulating rules on good and bad combinations of choices. These rules help to select system designs.
• Create shared vocabulary for describing and understanding systems
• Help in day-to-day practice and training of new engineers

Evaluation of Design Space

Two-step process:

1. Applying design space techniques to design the architecture of a type of software system
2. Comparing recommendation by the design space with the actual systems designed by experts