When you are defining the tables and setting up relationships, you often have to select from among several possible solutions. To ensure that you select the most appropriate solution, you need a way to measure the quality of your design. You can use the normalization process to do this. The normalization process conducts a series of tests on your design to verify whether it belongs to a certain normal form. There are six normal forms. Most documentation on relational database design explains how to obtain these forms. For more information, see Designing the Application.