Software design has evolved over the past decade. What are the most significant changes?

1 Agile and Lean Approaches

One of the major shifts in software design is the adoption of agile and lean approaches, which emphasize iterative, incremental, and collaborative development. Agile and lean methods aim to deliver software that meets the changing needs and feedback of the customers, while minimizing waste and maximizing value. Some of the popular agile and lean frameworks include Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, and DevOps. These frameworks require software designers to adopt practices such as user stories, backlog management, sprints, retrospectives, continuous integration, and continuous delivery.

2 Cloud Computing and Microservices

Another significant change in software design is the emergence of cloud computing and microservices, which enable software systems to be distributed, scalable, and resilient. Cloud computing is the delivery of computing resources, such as servers, storage, databases, and applications, over the internet, on demand, and pay-per-use basis. Microservices are small, independent, and loosely coupled services that communicate with each other through standard protocols and APIs. Software designers need to consider the benefits and challenges of cloud computing and microservices, such as cost, performance, security, availability, and complexity.

3 User Experience and Design Thinking

A third important change in software design is the increased focus on user experience and design thinking, which aim to create software that is useful, usable, and desirable for the end users. User experience is the overall impression and satisfaction that users have when interacting with a software system. Design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that involves empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing. Software designers need to apply user experience and design thinking principles and techniques, such as personas, scenarios, wireframes, mockups, and usability testing.

4 Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

A fourth notable change in software design is the advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which enable software systems to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as recognition, reasoning, learning, and decision making. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are based on algorithms and data that can learn from experience and improve over time. Software designers need to understand the potential and limitations of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as the ethical and social implications of their use.

5 Domain-Driven Design and Event-Driven Architecture

A fifth significant change in software design is the adoption of domain-driven design and event-driven architecture, which emphasize the alignment of software design with the business domain and the communication of state changes. Domain-driven design is an approach that focuses on modeling the domain concepts, rules, and behaviors, using a ubiquitous language that is shared by the developers and the domain experts. Event-driven architecture is an approach that relies on events, which are messages that indicate something has happened in the system, to trigger actions and reactions among the components. Software designers need to apply domain-driven design and event-driven architecture principles and patterns, such as bounded contexts, aggregates, value objects, entities, events, event sourcing, and event storming.

6 Test-Driven Development and Behavior-Driven Development

A sixth important change in software design is the practice of test-driven development and behavior-driven development, which emphasize the role of testing in driving and verifying the software design. Test-driven development is a technique that requires the developers to write tests before writing code, and to refactor the code until it passes the tests. Behavior-driven development is a technique that requires the developers to write tests in a natural language that describes the expected behavior of the software system, using frameworks such as Cucumber and SpecFlow. Software designers need to use test-driven development and behavior-driven development methods and tools, such as unit testing, integration testing, acceptance testing, and code coverage.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?