10 Best Software Design Courses & Tutorials - Learn Software Design Online

Highly curated the best software design courses for beginners. Start with the top software design tutorials and learn software design as beginners.

10 Best Software Design Courses & Tutorials - Learn Software Design Online

In the realm of software development, design, and architecture play pivotal roles in creating robust, scalable, and efficient systems. Whether you're an aspiring software engineer, an experienced developer looking to enhance your skills, or a tech enthusiast eager to understand the intricacies of software design, choosing the right courses and tutorials is key to unlocking your potential in this rapidly evolving field.

Welcome to our comprehensive guide, where we unveil the best software design and architecture courses and tutorials available today. This resource will serve as your compass, navigating you through the vast educational opportunities to help you acquire the knowledge and expertise needed to create elegant software solutions.

Software design and architecture encompass the foundation upon which successful applications are built. It involves making critical decisions on how to structure and organize code, select appropriate frameworks and technologies, and design systems that are scalable, maintainable, and adaptable to evolving requirements. With the right guidance and training, you can become a master of this craft, transforming your software development skills into an art form.

In this guide, we will explore the most highly regarded software design and architecture courses and tutorials, delving into their content, methodologies, and the skills they impart. From fundamental concepts to advanced techniques, these resources will provide you with a solid foundation and the tools to master complex software challenges.

Top Software Design Courses, Tutorials, Certifications List

  1. SOLID Principles of Object-Oriented Design and Architecture
  2. Software Design and Architecture
  3. Data Structures and Software Design
  4. Secure Software Design
  5. Java Programming: Principles of Software Design
  6. Software Construction: Object-Oriented Design
  7. Basics of Software Architecture & Design Patterns in Java
  8. Software Architecture: Meta and SOLID Principles in C#
  9. Microservices Software Architecture: Patterns and Techniques
  10. Java Design Patterns - The Complete Masterclass

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1. SOLID Principles of Object-Oriented Design and Architecture

In this course, you'll dive deep into software architecture by mastering SOLID principles. These principles serve as guidelines for designing clean and maintainable software systems. By understanding and applying SOLID principles, you'll gain a new level of insight into software architecture and object-oriented programming.

  • Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 (3,247 Rating total)
  • Duration: 4.5 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

In this software design course, you will:

  • Learn the fundamental theory of solid principles.
  • See how each individual solid principle relates to software architecture.
  • Understand the scope of applicability of solid principles.
  • Discover the prominence and the value of abstractions in software development.

Throughout the course, you'll learn the importance of SOLID principles in creating flexible, extensible, and readable code. You'll discover how implementing these principles can make your software more maintainable and enjoyable to work with.

In addition to a detailed exploration of software architecture and SOLID principles, the course also presents interesting historical facts about the individuals behind these principles. This historical detour provides a broader perspective and adds color and intrigue to your learning experience.

SOLID principles are the result of over 40 years of academic research and industry experience, distilled by generations of software developers. They provide universal, time-proven tools for delivering high-quality software to users. This course will take you through each of the five SOLID principles: Single Responsibility Principle, Open Closed Principle, Liskov Substitution Principle, Interface Segregation Principle, and Dependency Inversion Principle.

You can take SOLID Principles of Object-Oriented Design and Architecture  Certificate Course on Udemy.

2. Software Design and Architecture

Learn Software Design and Architecture from the University of Alberta. In the Software Design and Architecture Specialization, you will learn how to apply design principles, patterns, and architectures to create reusable and flexible software.

  • Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 (61,748 total enrollments)
  • Duration: 4 months (3h/week)
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this software design and architecture course, you will:

  • Apply the Class Responsibility Collaborator (CRC) technique to analyze and design the object-oriented model for a problem.
  • Explain and apply object-oriented modeling principles and their purpose (e.g., abstraction, encapsulation, decomposition, generalization).
  • Explain and apply different types of inheritance
  • Explain the difference between association, aggregation, and composition dependencies.
  • Express object-oriented models as Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagrams.
  • Translate between UML class diagrams and equivalent Java code.
  • Apply design guidelines for modularity, separation of concerns, information hiding, and conceptual integrity to create a flexible, reusable, maintainable design.
  • Explain the tradeoff between cohesion and coupling.
  • Demonstrate how to use design patterns to address user interface design issues.
  • Identify the most suitable design pattern to address a given application design problem.
  • Apply design principles (e.g., open-closed, dependency inversion, least knowledge).
  • Critique code by identifying and refactoring anti-patterns.
  • Apply the model-view-controller architectural pattern.

In the Software Design and Architecture Specialization, you will learn how to apply design principles, patterns, and architectures to create reusable and flexible software applications and systems. You will learn how to express and document the design and architecture of a software system using a visual notation. Practical examples and opportunities to apply your knowledge will help you develop employable skills and relevant expertise in the software industry.

This course takes Java beginners to the next level by covering object-oriented analysis and design. You will discover how to create modular, flexible, and reusable software, by applying object-oriented design principles and guidelines. And, you will be able to communicate these designs in a visual notation known as Unified Modelling Language (UML). You will be challenged in the Capstone Project to apply your knowledge of object-oriented design by evolving and documenting the Java codebase for an Android application with corresponding UML documentation. This course extends object-oriented analysis and design by incorporating design patterns to create interactive applications.

Through a survey of established design patterns, you will gain a foundation for more complex software applications. Finally, you will identify problematic software designs by referencing a catalog of code smells. You will be challenged in the Capstone Project to redesign an existing Java-based Android application to implement a combination of design patterns. You will also critique a given Java codebase for code smells.

In the Capstone Project you will document a Java-based Android application with UML diagrams and analyze evaluate the application’s architecture using the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM).

You can take Software Design and Architecture  Certificate Course on Coursera.

3. Data Structures and Software Design

Knowing how to code is only part of the skills needed to become a professional software developer. This course, part of the CS Essentials for Software Development Professional Certificate program, will take your skills to the next level by teaching you how to write “good” software that appropriately represents and organizes data, is easy to maintain, and is of high quality.

  • Course rating: 31,816 total enrollments
  • Duration: 36 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this software design course, you will:

  • Efficient means of storing and retrieving data in a Java program
  • How to identify the data structure that best represents the problem at hand
  • Use of the inbuilt Java data structures
  • Assess and improve the quality of software design with respect to object-oriented principles
  • Convert a set of requirements into a high-quality software design
  • How to write efficient code that is easy to read, understand, and modify

As the purpose of most computer programs is to manipulate data, sometimes large quantities of it, the manner in which programs represent and organize data can have an enormous effect on the simplicity and efficiency of the code. In this course, you will learn about important core data structures such as arrays, lists, stacks, queues, sets, maps, trees, and graphs, and learn how to evaluate them and reason about their behavior and efficiency. Most importantly, you will learn how to determine which data structure is the most appropriate for solving the problem at hand, and see how to use the implementations that are part of the Java library.

However, choosing the right data structure is only part of the challenge of developing high quality software: you must also consider the design of the classes that use those data structures. You will learn about software design principles such as modularity, functional independence, and abstraction, and apply those concepts toward writing programs that are easy to understand, easy to modify, and easy to test. Although it is important to know how to write high quality code, professional software developers often spend a majority of their time maintaining existing code.

You will also learn about software refactoring techniques for improving the design of existing code, and see how to improve code efficiency. This course will use Java but the concepts you learn can be applied to almost all modern programming languages.

You can take Data Structures and Software Design Certificate Course on EDX.

4. Secure Software Design

Learn Secure Software Design from the University of Colorado System. Information security is an extremely important topic in our world today. As individuals, we seek to protect our personal information while the corporations we work for have to.

  • Course rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 (5,596 total enrollments)
  • Duration: 7 months (2h/week)
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this software design course, you will:

  • Outline the composition of the Arduino development board
  • Secure design
  • UML, unit testing, and ethics
  • Effective user interfaces
  • Database design

This Specialization focuses on ensuring security as part of software design and is for anyone with some workplace experience in software development who needs the background, perspective, and skills to recognize important security aspects of software design. You’ll consider secure design for multiple SDLC models, software architecture considerations, and design patterns.

You’ll understand how to identify and implement secure design when considering databases, UML, unit testing, and ethics. Mindsets and attitudes of successful designers—and hackers—are presented as well as project successes and failures. Always at the core of front-end design will be user experience and you will have the opportunity to ensure clean and effective user interfaces that also serve to provide the best security. Back-end development topics such as database design are also covered.

During the design phase, unique characteristics emerge that set it apart from other steps in software development. One distinguishing aspect is the reliance on visual representations, such as drawings and diagrams. We delve into the reasons behind this preference and the advantages it offers. Pictures provide varying levels of detail and context, allowing us to paint a comprehensive picture of our software solution. Understanding the importance of these elements is key to successful design.

Additionally, we draw inspiration from other disciplines, particularly building architecture, to extract valuable lessons in design. As software developers, we have created tools over the years to aid us in our work, making design and associated tasks more manageable. This course introduces fundamental tools and techniques that enhance the design process. However, tools aren't limited to tangible resources alone. In the final lessons, we delve into the ethical considerations of software development, equipping you to fulfill your responsibilities as a designer effectively.

You can take Secure Software Design Course on Coursera.

5. Java Programming: Principles of Software Design

Learn Java Programming: Principles of Software Design from Duke University. Solve real-world problems with Java using multiple classes. Learn how to create programming solutions that scale using Java interfaces. Recognize that software.

  • Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 (1,207 Rating total)
  • Duration: 13 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this software design course, you will:

  • Write programs that include multiple classes and ArrayLists of class types
  • Find the maximum value in an ArrayList
  • Use a Filter interface to search through data
  • Implement interfaces with method signatures
  • Combine several filters together
  • Use sorting appropriately in solving problems
  • Develop classes that implement the Comparable interface
  • Use timing data to analyze empirical performance
  • Break problems into multiple classes, each with their own methods
  • Determine if a class from the Java API can be used in solving a particular problem
  • Implement programming solutions using multiple approaches and recognize tradeoffs
  • Use object-oriented concepts including interfaces and abstract classes when developing programs
  • Appropriately hide implementation decisions so they are not visible in public methods
  • Recognize the limitations of algorithms and Java programs in solving problems.
  • Recognize standard Java classes and idioms including exception-handling, static methods, java.net, and java.io packages.

Solve real-world problems with Java using multiple classes. Learn how to create programming solutions that scale using Java interfaces. Recognize that software engineering is more than writing code - it also involves logical thinking and design. By the end of this course you will have written a program that analyzes and sorts earthquake data and developed a predictive text generator.  Welcome to “Java Programming: Principles of Software Design”!

In this introductory module, you will hear an overview of this course and be introduced to the supporting resources available. In this module, we will introduce a data set containing details about earthquakes around the world. You will learn how to pull this data into a program, search through the data, and filter the data based on desired criteria.  You will learn how to implement a selection sort and a bubble sort, then be introduced to a Java method Collections.sort, which sorts with much greater efficiency.

You can take Java Programming: Principles of Software Design Course on Coursera.

6. Software Construction: Object-Oriented Design

This course, part of the Software Development MicroMasters program, will dig deep into the principles of object-oriented design, and introduce new abstraction techniques and design patterns.

  • Course rating: 23,404 total enrollments
  • Duration: 54 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this course, you will:

  • How to read and use software design patterns
  • To implement and test an object-oriented design
  • How to develop an application using online services and APIs

You will use these techniques to build an application that makes use of popular online services and APIs – the most complex software design project so far. By the end of the course, you will have a solid foundation in Java and Object-Oriented Design, as well as many software development concepts that can be applied to any language. Learners who enroll in the Verified track will receive staff grading for the course project and increased interaction with the instructors and staff.

You can take the Software Construction: Object-Oriented Design  Certificate Course on EDX.

7. Basics of Software Architecture & Design Patterns in Java

Welcome to this comprehensive course on software architecture and design patterns. Throughout the course, we will explore two main topics: SOLID principles and design patterns. Although we will implement examples in Java, the theoretical concepts are language-independent. To grasp the concepts effectively, we highly recommend practicing the implementations on your own.

  • Course rating: 4.4 out of 5.0 (1,702 Rating total)
  • Duration: 4.5 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this course, you will:

  • SOLID principles
  • Design patterns
  • Object-oriented design

Section 1 focuses on the SOLID principles, covering essential concepts such as the Single Responsibility Principle, Open Closed Principle, Liskov's Substitution Principle, Interface Segregation Principle, and Dependency Inversion Principle. Understanding these principles is crucial for creating maintainable and flexible software solutions.

In Section 2, we delve into behavioral design patterns, including the Strategy Pattern, Observer Pattern, Command Pattern, Iterator Pattern, Template Pattern, Null Object Pattern, and Visitor Pattern. These patterns provide powerful techniques for designing reusable software components.

Section 3 explores creational design patterns, such as the Singleton Pattern, Factory Pattern, and Builder Pattern. These patterns help in creating objects in a flexible and controlled manner.

In Section 4, we shift our focus to structural design patterns, including the Decorator Pattern, Facade Pattern, and Adapter Pattern. These patterns enable us to enhance and organize our software architecture effectively.

Finally, in Section 5, we apply the Model-View-Controller (MVC) model in a Java application. MVC is a widely used architectural pattern for building scalable and maintainable software systems.

This course is designed for Java enthusiasts who want to enhance their ability to write reusable code. Whether you're a beginner or have some familiarity with Java, this course will provide valuable insights and practical knowledge.

You can take the Basics of Software Architecture & Design Patterns in Java Course on Udemy.

8. Software Architecture: Meta and SOLID Principles in C#

Learn how to develop maintainable software systems applying Design Patterns based on Meta and SOLID Principles.

  • Course rating: 4.4 out of 5.0 (684 Rating total)
  • Duration: 5 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this software architecture course, you will:

  • Determine if a class has too many responsibilities
  • Apply SRP to make classes more granular
  • Determine the smell of duplication caused by OCP violation
  • Apply OCP to remove or prevent duplications
  • Make client's lives more enjoyable by applying ISP, making interfaces more granular
  • Determine LSP violations that break the client's code
  • Apply LSP to come up with proper inheritance
  • Apply DIP to develop plugin architecture
  • Build your own simple IoC-Container
  • Build clean API in C#

SOLID is an acronym which stands for SRP, OCP, LSP, ISP and DIP. These five acronyms in their turn stand for: Single Responsibility Principle Open/Closed Principle Liskov Substitution Principle Interface Segregation Principle Dependency Inversion Principle.

This course will teach you how to write code that will stand the test of time. By applying meta and SOLID principles, you'll learn how to write high-quality code that is readable, understandable, and reliable. This course will help you learn object-oriented programming and lay the groundwork for creating well-designed apps.

The course begins by diving into the SOLID principles, including Single Responsibility Principle (SRP), Open-Closed Principle (OCP), Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP), Interface Segregation Principle (ISP), and Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP). You'll explore the problems these principles address, witness their application through code demonstrations, and discover related patterns that enhance their effectiveness.

Building on the SOLID principles, you'll delve into meta-principles and examine the interplay between different principles. Discovering the relationships between SOLID principles and meta principles, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how to find a balance between them.

In addition to the SOLID principles, you'll explore Dependency Injection (DI), Inversion of Control (IoC), IoC Containers, and their architectural implications. Learning about DI and related concepts will expand your knowledge of software architecture and design.

This course is intended for middle and senior developers with a solid background in C#. Through a combination of theoretical explanations and practical examples, you'll develop a comprehensive understanding of meta and SOLID principles. By the end of the course, you'll be equipped with the tools to produce clean, maintainable code that sets you apart as a skilled professional.

You can take Software Architecture: Meta and SOLID Principles in C# Certificate Course on Udemy.

9. Microservices Software Architecture: Patterns and Techniques

Learn how to design and implement microservice systems using the right architecture design patterns and techniques.

  • Course rating: 4.2 out of 5.0 (6,818 Rating total)
  • Duration: 1 Hour
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this course, you will:

  • Learn about microservices architecture
  • Learn how to implement software architecture patterns for a distributed system to allow scalability whilst maintaining consistency
  • Learn techniques to help you in the design, development, deployment, and monitoring of your microservice-based system
  • Identify technical challenges and common pitfalls

In this course, you will learn in detail the software architecture patterns and techniques to develop robust and scalable microservices We will go through techniques and design patterns that are required in enterprise architecture including Event Sourcing pattern Saga pattern Microservice Registration Circuit breaker pattern API composition Two-Phase Commit Microservice Discovery.

The course is structured around both video tutorials explaining different techniques and architecture patterns, and (optional) assignments to help make sure you're understanding what we're learning.

This course is highly recommended for any developer who wants to move on to a senior position or software architect role. However, it will also be a good start for beginner to introduce them to proper coding practices early on.

You can take Microservices Software Architecture: Patterns and Techniques  Certificate Course on Udemy.

10. Java Design Patterns - The Complete Masterclass

Master Java Design Patterns and Write Robust and Extensible Software.

  • Course rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 (453 Rating total)
  • Duration: 10 Hours
  • Certificate: Certificate of completion

With this course, you will:

  • Master Java Design Patterns
  • Apply Design Patterns to Real-World Projects
  • Build Software that's Robust and Flexible Using Java Design Patterns
  • Solve common Software architecture problems with Java Design Patterns

This course is tailored for anyone who has working Java, or any OOP Programming Knowledge and are looking to dive deeper into the core of Software Development principles - Design Patterns. This course is designed to teach you everything you need to know about Java Design Patterns so you can apply what you learn into your projects. If you are reading this is because you know the value of learning Design Patterns as a Programmer - Design Patterns are the common denominator you need to master in order to build excellent Software and build systems that actually work the way they should work.

If you are looking to get a job as an Android developer or start a freelance career in Android Development, you MUST have solid Android Developing experience as well as a stunning portfolio to back that up. This course will teach you how to grow your Android Development knowledge while building up your portfolio. You will be building several Android Apps from the get-go.

If you want to become: a highly paid Professional Programmer an expert Developer companies want to hire a Freelancer Developer who builds Top-notch Applications and systems a person who can design and architect software using Design Patterns a programmer who really understands Java Design Patterns and how to implement them in a code base.

You'll be immersed in Design Patterns in Java from the first lecture to the end. You will also receive a Certificate of Completion so you can present to your potential employer. You see, out there on the Internet, you can find a lot of information, but the problem is that everything is scattered around and very frustrating to actually learn the right way since all you get is fragments of information.

You can take Java Design Patterns - The Complete Masterclass Certificate Course on Udemy.


Thank you for reading this. We hope our course curation would help you to pick the right course to learn Software Design & Architecture. In case you want to explore more, you can take the free Software Design & Architecture courses.

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