Let´s enforce a simple visualization rule in Software Architecture

Many software architecture books have been written during the past decade. Taylor et al. have made their latest attempt to settle a standard in their large volume book, Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice. As a software development practitioner, the author of this paper, who worked on many software-centric systems in both Aerospace and Telecommunication industries, will provide a unique analysis of software architecture roles in the software development life cycle. Based on the view that the essential purpose of software architecture is to communicate the design of the software to its stakeholders, this paper proposes a simple approach to visualization in software architecture as a rule of thumb to achieve an effective communication in software development.