If photo and {eye, nose, mouth} are well-behaved in the sense that eye, nose and mouth are independent features totally characterizing photo, then the above normalization can always be carried out. Moreover, by looking at the redesigned database schema, the designer can tell whether the application programs will be affected. In particular, s/he can contrast the redesigned schema against class and use-case diagrams of the whole application to precisely detect the application programs that may be affected by the normalization step.

Such techniques can be useful in database refactoring.