# Malte Ubl - Design Docs at Google (Highlights)  ## Highlights - A short list of bullet points of what the goals of the system are, and, sometimes more importantly, what non-goals are. Note, that non-goals aren’t negated goals like “The system shouldn’t crash”, but rather things that could reasonably be goals, but are explicitly chosen not to be goals ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hd2xq1q66yckvskd54741nm7)) ^612664589 - The design doc is *the place to write down the trade-offs* you made in designing your software. Focus on those trade-offs to produce a useful document with long-term value ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hd2xqm9v84a64ssdhtz9hnkb)) ^612664769 - In many docs a *[system-context-diagram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_context_diagram)* can be very useful. Such a diagram shows the system as part of the larger technical landscape and allows readers to contextualize the new design given its environment that they are already familiar with. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hd2xrxe7xbhd3kt53nz4p3zz)) ^612664828