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design document
subject			fact

design document	allows a group of people to review the design and therefore to improve it
	contains every design decision along with the reasoning that went into making the decision
	has definition Documentation produced as a result of the design process
	describes the priorities used to guide the design process
	describes what system or part of the system this design document describes
	discusses the important issues that had to be resolved, the possible alternatives that were considered, the final decision and the rationale for the decision
	ensures traceability by making reference to the requirements that are being implemented by this design
	forces a designer to be explicit and to consider the important issues before starting implementation
	has purpose to encourage designers to make good design decisions to communicate the design to others
	has suggested structure purpose general priorities outline of the design major design issues other details of the design
	includes a high-level description (or diagram) of the design that allows the reader to quickly get a general feeling for it
	includes the information its readers need to learn
	includes the rationale for the design which allows the reader to better understand the design, helps reviewers to determine whether good decisions were made, and helps the maintainers determine how to change the design
	is a subtopic of 9.1 - The Process of Design
	is a kind of document
	makes reference to the requirements that are being implemented by this design
	see also design
	should be written for Those who will be implementing the design, i.e. the programmers Those who will need, in the future, to modify the design Those who need to create systems or subsystems that interface with the system being designed
	should not include information that would be readily obvious to a skilled programmer or designer details in a design document that would be better placed as comments in the code details that can be extracted automatically from the code, such as the list of public methods

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