Design in Software Engineering
21 Jan 2021
Often times, we don’t notice the assets that are given and put into our lives. Our daily lives are easier everyday thanks to good design. Design exists in everything from the chairs you sit, the spaces you walk through, and the apps you use on your phone. Design is there for many purposes. It is based on accessibility, aesthetics, or approachability. But either way, design is there for people to use. Bad design can come as a hindrance for the user while good design will provide an advantage. Whether an object has good or bad design, the art itself is interesting to look at.
I started my journey of exploring this art with graphic design. My first years of university started by taking classes in graphic design. At first it was a very painful and tedious experience. The courses I took made me look deep into things that I never thought were important such as typography. Very minuscule things such as the spacing and placement of words can change how people view things. Habits that humans established in different cultures such as reading from right to left affect how we do things. As I progressed, I met friends in Architecture that taught me the design in space and human interaction with that space. I learned about the importance of open environments and account for things like the placement of the sun.
I just now started my journey with design in technology. A little bit more complicated but design just the same. There is design in code where you try to make a program run more efficient. When you are designing, you have to keep every little detail in mind. It is the same with programming, you have to be wary of every possible option. Keep in mind the runtime, space, what language you should use, what algorithm to use, and what the user may encounter. Design in technology is just like design in everywhere else. It’s built around human body language. Software engineering has good design when a piece of program can be understood by many. Good software saves time and space. The course I am taking currently in Software Engineering helps me learn about that. The WODs provided for us serve as good practice in designing solutions to problems we may encounter in programming. The reviews after every WODs allows me to see different ways I could’ve gone and learn from them. As I continue my software engineering journey, I want to grow as a designer and a programmer. I hope to build and create things that are usable to everyone.