Requirements vs. Software Design: An Explanation Based on the Distinction between Concepts and Their Representations

Still, requirements and software design are often confused with one another. We provide a new (partial) explanation for this phenomenon, based on the insight that representations of concepts related to requirements and software design, respectively, may sometimes look very similar. This does not mean, however, that the requirements and design concepts are the same. So, we should distinguish requirements from their representations and, analogously, software design from its representation. Then it is easier to clearly distinguish requirements and software design as well.