Diagrammatic Notations

• To complement or replace NL prose

• Graphical: to ease communication, provide overview
• Semi-formal:
• Declaration of items in formal language
• Informal spec -> NL
• Demonstrate: System scope, conceptual structures,
activities and data, information flows, system
operations, interaction scenarios, system behaviors,
multiple system views, etc...
System Operations: Use Case
Diagrams
• Capture operations to be performed by a system
component & interactions with other components
• Simple, outline view ... but vague
• Can be made precise by annotations, interaction
scenarios, etc...
• Structuring mechanisms :
<<include>>: to specify “sub-operation”
<<extend>> + precondition: to specify “variant” operation
in exception case
Use Case Example