

Maintenance, registration, and insurance of the vehicle would be covered under a separate set of goal-oriented use cases. These use cases help flesh out the specific kind of goals associated with driving and parking the vehicle. Goal-level Use Cases associated with “Operate the Vehicle” are depicted in the following diagram. The subject (Hybrid SUV) and the actors (Driver, Registered Owner, Maintainer, Insurance Company, DMV) interact to realize the use case. The use case diagram for “Drive Vehicle” in Figure 5 depicts the drive vehicle usage of the vehicle system. Achieving the right level of use case granularity eases communication between stakeholders and developers and improves project planning.Īlastair Cockburn in Writing Effective Use Cases gives us an easy way to visualize different levels of goal level by thinking in terms of the sea: Use case granularity refers to how information is organized within use case specifications, and to some extent, the level of detail at which they are written. Does anything happen automatically at a present time?.Who provides information to the system?.The following questions can help you identify the actors of your system (Schneider and Winters – 1998): Often, people find it easiest to start the requirements elicitation process by identifying the actors. The figure below provides a use case example by showing two generalization connectors that connect between the three use cases. The child may add or override the behavior of the parent. It shows an extend connector and an extension point “Search”.Ī generalization relationship means that a child use case inherits the behavior and meaning of the parent use case. Take a look at the use case diagram example below. The > relationship is used to include optional behavior from an extending use case in an extended use case. The extend relationships are important because they show optional functionality or system behavior. The > relationship is used to include common behavior from an included use case into a base use case to support the reuse of common behavior. The include relationship adds additional functionality not specified in the base use case.


the actors and the relationships between the actors and use cases. Major Use Case Diagram Symbols Association LinkĪ Use Case diagram illustrates a set of use cases for a system, i.e. Use Case Diagram at a GlanceĪ standard form of use case diagram is defined in the Unified Modeling Language as shown in the Use Case Diagram example below: It is an effective technique for communicating system behavior in the user’s terms by specifying all externally visible system behaviors. A key concept of use case modeling is that it helps us design a system from the end user’s perspective. Use cases once specified can be denoted both textual and visual representation (i.e. A Use case has been viewed as a mechanism to capture system requirements in terms of the uses of the system which specifies the expected behavior (what), and not the exact method of making it happens (how) of a system and thus, it is a black-box view of the system it is therefore well suited to serve as a system context diagram.
