Conclusion

After reviewing the nine software design methodologies mentioned in this paper and creating the classification/taxonomy table, several conclusions can be drawn. First of all, many of the attributes can be seen in several methodologies. For example, al l of the methodologies have specific stages. (Although, some of the methodology's stages are formal and others informal.) This overlap of attributes between methodologies is very common.

What is interesting to observe is that three of the methodologies have the same critical attributes on the classification/taxonomy table. Those three are the Star Life Cycle, the Lifecycle for Interactive Systems Development, and Usability Engineering Lifecycle. This leads me to conclude that these three methodologies have similar design goals, but different ways of achieving them (e.g. rapid prototyping and usability engineering).

Another conclusion is that in addition to specific stages, all of the methodologies have at least some focus on the user. This is heartening to me because I am a strong believer in user-centered design. I know the focus on users is not in all methodol ogies, but it is interesting that it can be seen to some degree in all nine of the methodologies described in this paper.

An additional conclusion is that all but two of the methodologies have a focus on iterative design. This is interesting to note because this seems to be a trend in the many design methodologies I have examined. Whether this is only lip-service by the authors of the methodologies or whether it really happens can only be determined by actually using the methodologies in real life.

This leads me back to the purpose of this paper (as stated in the problem section). It is to provide a beginning for the reader to get an overall idea of the types of methodologies that are available and how to classify them. Then the reader can begin to use this process to compare and classify methodologies that are available to them. My concluding point is that this is just a beginning. In order for designers to really understand software design methodologies, they need to do more research into th e very roots of the methodologies and ultimately try them out for themselves.