ELI5: Database design

Database design is like organizing your toys so you can easily find them later.

Imagine you have a big box of toys. If you just throw everything in randomly, it's hard to find your favorite teddy bear or your race car when you want to play with them. Database design is about deciding how to organize that box (the database) into smaller, well-labeled containers (called tables), and deciding what information (your toys, but in the database, we call it data) goes into each container.

Here's how it works, step-by-step:

• Figure out what you need: What information do you want to store? For example, maybe you want to keep track of your toy cars: their color, model, and how fast they are.
• Create containers (tables): Each container holds information about one type of thing. You might have a "Cars" container.
• Label each container (define fields/columns): Each container has different sections for each piece of information. The "Cars" container might have sections for "Color", "Model", and "Speed".
• Put your toys (data) in the right place: You put each car's information into the correct sections of the "Cars" container. So, you'd write "Red" in the "Color" section, "Ferrari" in the "Model" section, and "200 mph" in the "Speed" section for one of your cars.

Good database design makes it easy to:

• Find information quickly.
• Add new information.
• Change existing information.
• Avoid mistakes and repetition.