Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
10-2004
Abstract
Despite the status of united modeling language (UML) as the de facto standard for object oriented modeling, it has received controversial reviews. The most controversial diagram in UML is the use case diagram. Some practitioners claim that use case diagrams are not valuable in requirements analysis and some have even argued that use case diagrams should not be part of UML. This research examined the values of use case diagram in interpreting requirements when use case diagrams are used in conjunction with class diagrams. In other words, the study investigated the possible synergetic values and relationships between the use case and class diagrams in the context of requirements analysis. This study used theories from cognitive psychology as its theoretical and conceptual foundation. The data collection utilized the verbal protocol technique in which subjects were asked to think aloud as they interpreted the use case and class diagrams. The results show that the use case diagrams were more completely interpreted than the class diagrams. The presence or absence of one diagram when interpreting another diagram had no effect on the outcome of the interpretation. From the results, we argue that the use case diagrams and class diagrams depict different aspects of the problem domain, they have very little overlap in the information captured, and both are necessary in requirements analysis.
Keywords
Requirements analysis, Requirements engineering, Conceptual modeling, Unified modeling language, Use case diagram, Class diagram, Experimental study
Discipline
Databases and Information Systems | Software Engineering
Research Areas
Data Science and Engineering; Information Systems and Management
Publication
Requirements Engineering
Volume
9
Issue
4
First Page
229
Last Page
237
ISSN
0947-3602
Identifier
10.1007/s00766-004-0203-7
Publisher
Springer
Citation
SIAU, Keng and LEE, Lihyunn.
Are use case and class diagrams complementary in requirements analysis? An experimental study on use case and class diagrams in UML. (2004). Requirements Engineering. 9, (4), 229-237.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/9657
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-004-0203-7