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Use Cases: What Is A Use Case Components Defining A Use Case What Should Be Included

The document discusses use cases, which describe interactions between users and systems. It covers what use cases are, their typical components like actors and scenarios, different formats for writing use cases, and what should be included when defining use cases for a system. The goal is to determine the essential functions at a level that reduces complexity but still comprehensively captures requirements.

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504 views9 pages

Use Cases: What Is A Use Case Components Defining A Use Case What Should Be Included

The document discusses use cases, which describe interactions between users and systems. It covers what use cases are, their typical components like actors and scenarios, different formats for writing use cases, and what should be included when defining use cases for a system. The goal is to determine the essential functions at a level that reduces complexity but still comprehensively captures requirements.

Uploaded by

bbnc
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Use Cases

❚ What is a Use Case


❚ Components
❚ Defining a Use Case
❚ What should be included

CIS 320-03 1
What is a Use Case
❚ A story
❚ Not OO
❚ Primary means of recording requirements
❚ First used by Jacobson (1986)
❚ Typical observable interaction a user has with the
system in order to achieve a goal
❚ Used for discovery, recording, and communication
❚ Describes a function for both customer/user and
developer, e.g., in a word processor:
❙ Create a Table of Contents
❙ Format a paragraph

CIS 320-03 2
Components of a Use Case
❚ Actor
❙ Something with behaviour
❙ E.g., Bidder, computer system, EBAY
❚ Scenario: AKA “use case instance”
❙ A specific path through a use case
❙ Use Case is collection of related scenarios
(both successes and failures)
❚ Observable results

CIS 320-03 3
Use Case Format
❚ Many formats
❙ Black-box (what, not how)
❙ A paragraph or two
❙ Novella in length
❙ User-system response (dialogue)
❚ Formality
❙ Informal to Formal (brief, casual, fully dressed)
(template @ www.usecases.org)

CIS 320-03 4
Fully Dressed Format
❚ Primary Actor
❚ Stakeholder and Interests (contract)
❚ Preconditions (always true)
❚ Postconditions (on success)
❚ Main Scenario (success)
❚ Extensions (alternates)
❚ Special Requirements
❚ Technology and Data Variations
❚ Frequency of Occurrence

CIS 320-03 5
Defining a Use Case
❚ User Goals
❙ Find user goals
❙ Define use case for each
❙ Name use case based on goal
❚ Elementary Business Process (EBP)

CIS 320-03 6
Elementary Business Processes
❚ A task performed by
one person
in one place
at one time,
in response to a business event,
which adds measurable business value and
leaves the data in a consistent stat.,
e.g., bid on an auction. (Larman)
❚ Used to find dominant use cases

CIS 320-03 7
What should be included
❚ Determining Use Case set
❙ Reduce complexity
❙ Ease maintenance
❙ Increase comprehension
❙ Reduce time to understand
❚ Reoccurring sub-tasks should have their own
use cases
❚ Is subfunction goal a precondition for a number
of use cases?
e.g., Authenticate User
❚ Use EPB to filter out low level use cases
CIS 320-03 8
Process & Results
❚ Hard & Useful
❚ 10-100 in a ten-person-year project
❚ Acrimonious
❚ Always Incomplete
❚ Often under described
❚ Overly detailed
❙ CRUD (create, retrieve, update, delete)
CRUD = manage users use case

CIS 320-03 9

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