You don't say where you are coming from in asking this question, are you hobbyist, training at a technical college or university, starting out in a job, all have a bearing on how a start could be made in answering this question.
There is a free ebook oriented towards someone with some engineering experience at the university level, if that's where you are at, download it from this location.
http://www.eevblog.com/files/seekPDF.pdfIt is oriented towards someone doing volume production, but I believe anybody could get something from looking through this book.
No matter what level you are at, it is always interesting to ask why a design engineer chose what the did in a piece of electronics, I suggest that you do this every opportunity that you get. You will learn a lot that way, and it may result in the person you are asking having to justify themselves, which is an interesting exercise.