“Responsibility-driven design specifies object behavior before object structure and other implementation considerations are determined. We have found that it minimizes the rework required for major design changes.”

—  Rebecca Wirfs-Brock

Source: Object-oriented design: a responsibility-driven approach (1989), p. 74

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Rebecca Wirfs-Brock 13
American software engineer 1953

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The data-driven approach to object-oriented design focuses on the structure of the data in a system. This results in the incorporation of structural information in the definitions of classes. Doing so violates encapsulation.
The responsibility-driven approach emphasizes the encapsulation of both the structure and behavior of objects. By focusing on the contractual responsibilities of a class, the designer is able to postpone implementation considerations until the implementation phase.
While responsibility-driven design is not the only technique addressing this problem, most other techniques attempt to enforce encapsulation during the implementation phase. This is too late in the software life-cycle to achieve maximum benefits.”

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

Source: Object-oriented design: a responsibility-driven approach (1989), p. 75: Conclusion

“Object-oriented programming languages support encapsulation, thereby improving the ability of software to be reused, refined, tested, maintained, and extended. The full benefit of this support can only be realized if encapsulation is maximized during the design process.
We argue that design practices which take a data-driven approach fail to maximize encapsulation because they focus too quickly on the implementation of objects. We propose an alternative object-oriented design method which takes a responsibility-driven approach. We show how such an approach can increase the encapsulation by deferring implementation issues until a later stage.”

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

Source: Object-oriented design: a responsibility-driven approach (1989), p. 71: Abstract

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“In object-oriented analysis, we seek to model the world by identifying the classes and objects that form the vocabulary of the problem domain, and in object-oriented design, we invent the abstractions and mechanisms that provide the behavior that this model requires.”

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“Like structured design, the term object-oriented design (OOD) means different things to different people. For example, OOD has been used to imply such things as”

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The design of individual objects, and/or the design of the individual methods contained in those objects
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The process of specifying and coding of an entire object-oriented application
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“Object-oriented design is a method of design encompassing the process of object-oriented decomposition and a notation for depicting both logical and physical as well as static and dynamic models of the system under design.”

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Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (1953) American software engineer

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