The term “software architecture” has evolved over time, but most definitions share two key concepts: underlying principles that govern how software is organized and an understanding of the overall structure or design of a system.

In this article, we will discuss the first part of this definition — organizational structures. These include things like what parts of a project are grouped into modules, as well as how many layers of abstraction there should be in a system.

After giving some basic explanations, we will apply these ideas to review three different types of architectures: enterprise systems, web applications, and mobile apps. We will also look at some examples of each type.

Establish an outline for your software architecture

The first step in designing any complex system is establishing an overall organizational structure or framework for the project. This framework is what you will refer to as your “software architecture.”

Your software architecture determines how the different parts of the application are organized, and it has profound effects on everything else that comes later. For example, if you decide to have separate modules that make up the application, then you must establish clear protocols for information exchange between those modules.

If you're not careful, this can easily lead to slow down or even total shutdown of communication due to mismatched parameters. By thinking about the architecture ahead of time, you reduce the chances of such catastrophes!

There are many ways to approach architecting your software, but one of the most effective is using an Outline method. An Outline method requires you to define four components: Framework, Module, Function, and Platform.

By defining these components early on, you create a solid basis from which to work. Once all four components are defined, you can start organizing them into relationships and moving forward with developing your software architecture.

Create a project plan

A project proposal is a way to get initial commitments for resources and time. By including both internal and external stakeholders, you can ensure better buy-in and input towards creating your software architecture.

By having separate team members contribute to the project proposal, it becomes much more likely that each person will bring in the needed resources and help fill in missing pieces of the puzzle.

This also helps mitigate potential power struggles by breaking down the design process into discrete steps. Each member brings something different to the table and works together to achieve a common goal.

Project proposals are usually broken up into three sections: mission statement, milestones, and budget. The first two typically take around one page while the third can be extended to several pages depending on how detailed it is.

After getting all necessary approvals, the next step is to create a project schedule or timeline. This includes establishing due dates for each task, milestone, or phase of the project.

Choose your development platform

Choosing your software architecture framework is an important decision, one that will have a big impact on the rest of the design process.

There are many different platforms available for designing software architectures. Some focus more on intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces while others may require you to perform some coding tasks yourself.

Some offer built-in functionality for creating use cases, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams, and other pre-made diagram templates. Others let you create your own using their tooling or programming languages.

It all depends on what kind of results you are looking for and how much experience you have in software engineering.

This article will talk about three of the most popular software architectural frameworks and why they are helpful to know.

Write down your processes

A software architecture is an organized framework of concepts that describe how a program should be structured. Architectures help organize the different parts of a computer program so that users can understand them, and also give structure to developing new features or changing existing ones.

Software architects use architectural diagrams to visualize their ideas and talk about those ideas with other people. They may draw these diagrams themselves or ask someone else to do it for them.

Architectural diagrams typically include boxes and arrows representing individual components and relationships between components, respectively. Diagrams usually have names to make things clear.

There are several types of diagrams that architects use, but one of the most common is the flow diagram. Flow charts were made famous in the 1940s when they were used to illustrate process flows. Since then, they’ve been adapted to show many different kinds of relationships.

Flow diagrams are often referred to as process/workflow diagrams because they depict steps in a process or workflow. This type of diagram is very useful in describing the workflows of programs because you can easily add in or take out steps.

Software architectures depend heavily on the context of what being done before and what going forward looks like, which is why there are no hard and fast rules for creating them. What works for one architect will not necessarily work well for another!

That said, there are some general guidelines that anyone can follow when designing theirs.

Organize your team

As mentioned earlier, software architecture is an integral part of creating successful apps. If you do not have clear internal lines of communication, chaos will ensue!

As such, it’s important to make sure that your team has proper organizational structures in place. This way, people can come together as one unit to achieve their common goals.

Your organization should include at least the following members:

Project managers (PM)

These individuals are responsible for overseeing the development process for each project. They create milestones and deadlines, manage resources, and keep track of overall progress.

Software engineers (SE)

These professionals design and develop features and systems for the app. Their responsibilities vary from project to project, but typically include things like product management, research, system analysis, coding, and integration.

Requirements analysts (RA)

Requirement gathering is another key component in app development. Requirements assess what users want the app to do so that developers can design functionality accordingly.

A requirements analyst collects these insights by talking with potential users and exploring other similar applications.

Architects (AI)

These professionals work with software engineers to design the framework and structure of an app. For example, they may discuss whether to use MySQL or PostgreSQL database technology, determine how many pages an average user would need to visit before giving up, or decide if mobile devices require a special line of code.

Focus on customer experience

A growing body of research shows that how well your software functions is only half of the equation when it comes to determining if an app or service is successful. The other important factor is how much pleasure you get out of using the app or performing through its features.

This concept, which we can call consumer experience (or UX for short) focuses not just on whether users are able to perform tasks efficiently, but also on them having fun doing so.

By this measure, apps that feature annoying animations, superfluous graphics, and/or difficult-to-navigate menus will never be popularly used products. Even though they may work very well, people will always have better experiences with apps that focus more on offering intuitive solutions and straightforward navigation.

Software architecture is equally important because it has a direct impact on the user’s experience. Poorly designed architectures make use of inefficient technology and time consuming systems that fail to keep up with ever increasing demands in terms of performance and functionality.

Establish good documentation

As we have seen, software architecture is an integral part of developing any successful game or app. Without clear documentation, it can be difficult to really understand how things work under the hood.

Software architects typically write large amounts of documentation that are either shared with other members of the development team or published online for anyone to read. This helps others in the project to refer to and learn from the architect’s designs so that they may put them into practice themselves!

Good documentation includes clearly defined terms and concepts, as well as examples of these concepts being applied to real-world projects. It should also include step by step instructions on how to perform specific tasks, such as designing an interface or writing a utility function.

Design your system

A software architecture is like a house – it must have walls, doors, and windows!

Just as with a home, there are several important things that determine how well someone else’s house will function for you or them. For example, if there are no solid walls, then people can walk right in and out at any time which makes the space useless, and worse yet, potentially unsafe.

Similarly, if there are not enough stable barriers between different areas of an organization, chaos ensues and efficiency drops. Without these safeguards, departments begin working together instead of separately, and resources get wasted re-organizing everything every time something new comes along.

This isn’t just inefficient, but sometimes unlawful as well. For instance, what happens when one group needs access to another team’s information? What if they need help performing an audit? Or what if they ask about compensation records and nothing has been done in months?

These types of questions cannot be answered until there are some basic security protections in place, and internal boundaries have hardened. Systems such as these prevent people from continually moving around and accessing needed information.

In the software world, this is called “leveraging” by design. It is impossible to leverage properly without them. In fact, even creating systems with good architectural practices can mitigate against this risk.