APPLICATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE AXIOM ON THE DESIGN OF OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE USING THE AXIOMATIC DESIGN THEORY

Current software design methodologies and techniques enhance software quality features. However, it is difficult to evaluate if a software design solution is good enough without a theoretical foundation. The use of Axiomatic Design, together with a traditional software development methodology, can improve decision-making during the design process. This work presents an approach for object-oriented software design that intends to maintain the quality of the design solution along the development process. The goal of this approach is to facilitate the use of the Axiomatic Design together with Unified Modelling Language and object-oriented software development methodologies such as Unified Process. This design approach relates object-oriented software design concepts such as use cases, collaborations, classes, operations, and objects with functional requirements, design parameters, and the zigzagging process. This work presents a functional decomposition hierarchy, based on software design concepts, which can be applied together with software design methodologies. This work also presents a case study to illustrate the application of a design approach, based on Axiomatic Design, on an object-oriented design of a real-time embedded software system. The case study evaluates alternative design solutions to illustrate the application of the Independence Axiom in order to maintain the quality of the design.