Accessing decision-making in software design

This paper presents an analysis of software design protocols as one of the contributions to the 2010 international workshop ‘Studying Professional Software Design’. The aim of the study described here is to analyse the design process of software designers and to compare the results with that of product designers, an area familiar to the authors. Decision-making is the main focus of this study. A descriptive model of decision-making, developed by the authors, has been used to analyse the protocols of the three software design teams. The results give insight in how software designers process their activities, on the influence of individual or team differences, and what the consequences for their outcomes are.