Recognising object-oriented software design quality: a practitioner-based questionnaire survey

We propose a new and straight forward approach to measure design quality of object-oriented software systems. We use well known object oriented design quality metrics and find correlation among them to formulate a quality rank that is an indicator to the overall quality of any object oriented software. We tested our proposed formula on several open source software systems of different levels of design quality and validate by comparing the test result with expected levels of design quality.

Quality, waste and cost considerations in architectural building design management

Despite the burst in the availability of 00 analysis and design methodologies, languages, database management systems, and tools, relatively little work has been done in the area of 00 design quality assurance, assessment., and improvement. We badly need a better understanding of the properties of 00 system design, in the small and in the large, and their effect on quality factors such as maintainability, evolvability, and reusabiitym The understanding of desirable and non-desimble properties may contribute to improvement of risk assessment and product selection, better planning, more accurate assessment of maintenance efforts, improved productivity evaluation, a better foundation of design methods, improved system evolvability, and eventually to better design practices.

ABSTRACTThe fashion and textiles industry in Hong Kong is going through a rapid transformation period from production to design servicing. By investigating the design theory and design process of Hong Kong fashion designers, this study aimed to find out how they reacted to this phenomenon. A quantitative research method was adopted in this study. A questionnaire survey with factor analysis and the principal components method of SPSS was carried out to investigate the design theory of Hong Kong fashion designers. The results of this study indicated the definition of good fashion design in which ‘design qualities', ‘market value’ and ‘brand image’ were the three most important attributes, dominating in the design theories of Hong Kong fashion designers when creating new fashion.

The cost of software maintenance is always increasing. The companies are often confronted to failures and software errors. The quality of software to use is so required. In this paper, the authors propose a new formal approach for assessing the quality of object-oriented system design according to the quality assessment model. This approach consists in modeling the input software system by an automaton based on object-oriented design metrics and their relationship with the quality attributes. The model exhibits the importance of metrics through their links with the attributes of software quality. In addition, it is very practical and flexible for all changes. It allows the quality estimation and its validation. For the verification of proposed probabilistic model (automaton), they use the model-checking and the prism tool. The model-checking is very interesting for the evaluation and validation of the probabilistic automaton. They use it to approve the software quality of the three experimental projects. The obtained results are very interesting and of great importance.

Quality is a key issue in the development of software products. Although the literature acknowledges the importance of the design phase of software lifecycle and the effects of the design process and intermediate products on the final product, little progress has been achieved in addressing the quality of designs. This is partly due to difficulties associated in defining quality attributes with precision and measurement of the many different types and styles of design products, as well as problems with assessing the methodologies utilized in the design process. In this research we report on an empirical investigation that we conducted to examine and evaluate quality attributes of design products created through a process of pair-design and solo-design. The process of pair-design methodology involves pair programming principles where two people work together and periodically switch between the roles of driver and navigator. The evaluation of the quality of design products was based on ISO/IEC 9126 standards. Our results show some mixed findings about the effects of pair work on the quality of design products.

The object-oriented approach does not follow any formal design process and is mostly ad hoc in nature. This makes it more of an art than a science. The quality of the resultant design therefore depends to a large extent on the skills of the individual designer and cannot be evaluated easily. We believe that the theory of normalization, available to the designer of relational database systems, can also be applied to object-oriented design. This paper outlines the process of application of the theory of normalization to object-oriented design and shows that, if applied properly, it rids the design process from the aforementioned problems and yields a better object model by bringing formalism and taking a scientific approach.

Data searching is an essential process in design, and research within the design field indicates a distinction in how expert designers and novice designers approach design problems. Expert designers, possessing a wealth of specialized knowledge, tend to search for additional information less frequently during the design process. In contrast, novice designers, due to their lack of professional knowledge, often need to search for, redefine, or organize information. (Ho, 2001; Cross et al., 1994). Consequently, novice designers tend to spend a significant amount of time repeatedly searching for information, leading not only to time wastage but also to designs that lack comprehensive consideration. Therefore, this study posits that the data collection process at the onset of design significantly affects the quality of design outcomes, necessitating further exploration of the relationship between various search strategies and design quality.The methodology involves think-aloud protocols, with the selection of coding systems based on search strategies divided into 0 to 3 dimensions as proposed by Gero and McNeill (1998) within the "problem domain" abstraction. Dimension 0 defines the system from the product's usage and user needs; 1 pertains to the product's interaction, styling, and imagery; 2 involves subsystems from product specifications, functions, behaviors, principles, and pain points; 3 considers details, integrating product principles with design elements and local details for effective optimization within the design concept. Additionally, regarding the quality of design outcomes, this study draws from the basic criteria for product design concepts proposed by Li, Feng-Qiang et al. (2016), encompassing ten aspects: functionality (F), usability (U), aesthetics and form (A), innovation (I), sustainability (ST), possibility (P), safety and regulation (SA), and marketability (M). These ten design criteria serve as a standard for assessing the quality of product design. Through the "problem domain" and "ten design criteria," this study aims to explore the differences in data search processes between novice and expert designers and the resulting impact on design quality.The findings reveal that novice designers mainly focus on the shallow, basic search dimensions of 1 and 2, lacking in-depth understanding of product details, which often leads to insufficient information for design execution. Experts iterate across dimensions 0 to 3, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the product, which better supports the subsequent design process. In terms of design criteria, novices focus on aesthetics/form (A) and innovation (I), with functionality also considered to some extent, while other aspects appear to be unconsciously neglected. Moreover, interviews and data organization revealed that novices tend to search from their personal experiences, whereas experts start from user needs, leading to more effective and accurate searches. Hence, in design education, teaching students to conduct comprehensive data collection could significantly enhance their design quality.

Managing quality in projects: An empirical study

As a part of the company's digitalization project, the Well Delivery Process (WDP) software solution was successfully developed and launched in early 2021. By using this solution, engineers benefit from the project objectives like process standardization, well design quality, and well planning cycle time reduction. The WDP software consists of a series of integrated well delivery workflows including well design, drilling execution monitoring, and closeout reports within a single cloud-based platform. The system also provides users with many automation features such as well design rules validation, offset well analysis, risk analysis, automated calculations, and digital reports (drilling programs). Through this paper, we share our experiences and observations on the system development and implementation, and also challenges and limitations that we faced to roll it out successfully. In our conventional practices before the digital transformation, drilling engineers had their individual practices/formats to perform the well delivery process using various applications and techniques. Computer applications were used to generate and compile a drilling program, but there was no standard way of performing this process. In situations where the design parameters and/or subsurface information change, engineers should have repeated the entire process to revise the design and/or the drilling program manually. To standardize the process, minimize repetitive tasks, and provide engineers with all required digital tools, the first solution (a prototype computer program) was developed in-house to prove the concept. After multiple peer reviews and trials, we used the prototype program to specify user requirements for generating the WDP software solution. An agile methodology was utilized to engage all drilling engineers in each sprint of the WDP development phase to ensure that their requirements are fulfilled. Upon completion of the development phase, a comprehensive User Acceptance Test (UAT) was conducted followed by training sessions before the cut-off date for switching from the manual process to the WDP digital workflow. Switching from existing practice to a new way of work is always challenging especially when it comes to introducing new software. There was some resistance at the start-up period due to users' unfamiliarity with the software and also software bugs that were not found during testing periods and UAT. A support team was set up to ensure immediate action on users' requirements and any technical issues with the software. During the challenging transition period, all users were fully supported until make sure they are enough familiar with the system to complete the task effectively. The support team deployed hotfixes (bug fixing) as quickly as possible with no major impact on the drilling programs' timeline, monitored the system performance on daily basis, and gathered feedback for further improvements. At present, the WDP is the primary system used by all drilling engineers in the company's domestic assets as an integrated end-to-end well delivery workflow that provides an improved design quality in a shorter planning time. More than 200 well design workflows have been initiated and approved through the system since it is being used. Based on the recent users' satisfaction survey and feedback, an overall rating of 4.2 from 5 shows the WDP solution's effectiveness with many popular and useful features especially offset well analyzer and well design dashboards. As one of the first end-to-end workflow generations in the drilling engineering process, the WDP could save the working time up to 35-40% (voted by users) through a centralized dataset platform and its holistic approach to process standardization/automation. Besides design quality and cycle time improvement, the system also enables advanced data analytics for further automation and enhancements.

An alternative approach for measuring object-oriented (OO) software quality has been proposed by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) scheme. This approach is effective in defining the rank of software quality over a number of Java applications based on two sets of metric values representing main OO structural properties. The Metrics for Object-Oriented Software Engineering (MOOSE) and Metrics for Object-Oriented Design (MOOD) that have been describing individual characteristic of OO property now are integrated by means of AHPs pairwise comparison to deliver an estimate quantitative value of OO software design quality. A series of experiments were conducted by applying the approach to students works in Fundamental of Programming class. The results of applying AHP scheme were compared to experts judgments for verification. The result demonstrates the solidity of AHP mechanism for the intended purpose of measuring OO design quality.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">Multi-piece propshaft design during a customer's request for quote (RFQ) process has proven to be a great challenge for supplier engineers. This challenge requires a good balance of design quality and fast response time in order to meet customer expectations. Failing to do so may lead to either increased development cost due to late design changes or loss of the opportunity resulting from missed deadlines or a lack of design definition. After receiving all of the customer's requirements, the iterative design process normally takes a minimum of one to two weeks. During this period, supplier engineers must perform many trade-off analyses by adjusting more than one dozen design variables to satisfy various design criteria. Typically, this is accomplished by manually adjusting design variables to search for an acceptable design using tools such as Microsoft Excel. Very often, engineers are required to make design decisions based upon limited trade-off analyses due to very stringent time constraints. Using iSight software, the propshaft design optimization was performed in a compressed period of time. The optimization process included design variable mapping in Microsoft Excel sheets, problem formulation, and optimization algorithm selection. The optimization process significantly improved both up-front design quality and design process efficiency. It has led to better customer satisfaction and faster engineering competency during the RFQ process. Results have shown success in multi-piece propshaft design optimization, as well as increased opportunities for implementation of quality engineering methodology during the streamlined design process.</div>

The year 2023 is known as the year of AIGC, and the emergence of CHATGPT has brought about the adjustment of the direction of many industries. In this storm of technology based on artificial intelligence, the design industry should also follow the trend, think and make choices. With the continuous development of AI technology, its high efficiency and low cost make it a powerful tool for designers to improve efficiency in the design field. How generative artificial intelligence system (AIGC) can promote the optimization and intelligent transformation of user experience design is discussed. By analyzing in detail, the application of AIGC in the design process, the author gradually delves into how to use AIGC tools more rationally to improve the efficiency and quality of designers in completing the UX design process. The aim is to provide designers with new ideas in practice to cope with increasingly complex design tasks and user needs, and to provide reference for research and practice in related fields.

Models and abstractions in design

Due to the need for mass construction of transport routes there is a need to develop theoretical foundations and methods of their design, which will simplify the design process, develop geometric models to optimize transport links, improve existing and create new methods of geometric modeling of optimal trajectories. terrain and road parameters. In the process of designing transport links, the main objective function is the economic effect of their construction. The cost-effectiveness of the overpass should include minimizing the length of the road, taking into account construction costs, which also depend on the minimum allowable parameters of transport routes, the peculiarities of traffic. To develop an optimization model for determining the trajectory of the road in the territorial design, the analysis of geometric parameters of the features of transport routes such as the minimum: turning radius in terms of Rgor; profile angle of rise of the path angle α; profile angle of descent path angle β, profile radius of path convex curves Rprof1; profile radius of the path concave curves Rprof2; step of supporting structures of engineering supports ∆L. And also the maximum height of transport engineering support ∆H. These indicators will serve as limitations in optimizing the trajectory of overpasses. А conditional classification of relief surfaces taking into account geometrical features and parameters of different types of overpasses is offered. Its use will promote increase of quality of designing of transport ways on a terrain relief, simplification of design process and improvement of quality of design planning decisions at territorial designing. The further use of the optimization model to determine the trajectory of roads for different types of transport will improve the quality of design, solving planning problems of spatial design.