1- requirements collection and analysis-during this step, the database designers interview prospective database users to understand and document their data requirements--written set of users' requirements, functional requirements of the application (retrievals and updates).2- conceptual schema (conceptual design)-the conceptual schema is a concise description of the data requirements of the users and includes detailed descriptions of the entity types, relationships, and constraints; these are expressed using the concepts provided by the high-level data model.3- actual implementation of the database, using a commercial dbms-logical design or data model mapping; its result is a database schema in the implementation data model of the dbms. data model mapping is often automated or semiautomated within the database design tools.4- physical design phase-the internal storage structures, file organizations, indexes, access paths, and physical design parameters for the database files are specified.