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Subject:RE: Use Cases From:"Hannah Bissell" <to -dot- hannah -at- usa -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 23 Oct 2001 10:52:28 -0400
Kelly,
When I first started here I was given two books to learn how to do Use Cases
using RUP. The most helpful one was Writing Effective Use Cases by Alistair
Cockburn (said Co-burn with a long O in case you have to ask for it at the
bookstore - my embarrassment was hilarious when I said it wrong to the guy
covering the information desk at Barnes and Noble.). I read it cover to
cover in a day and half, taking notes and was on my way. Another helpful
book was The Rational Unified Process, An Introduction by Philippe Kruchten,
however I basically thumbed through it and read completely one chapter that
was specifically recommended (chapter 6 A Use Case Driven Process). Those
should get you enough information to get started and also have examples.
My suggestion is to look at the book examples. Take what is needed for your
project and get rid of the rest. In my case I was writing Use Cases for an
application that was one month from testing. They're supposed to be written
first. In my case the developers wanted specific error messages but more
importantly they wanted the specific situations that would trigger the error
message. They focused almost entirely on the interaction between the actor
(user) and the application. I did also have to include a detailed layout.
Personally, I don't think they would have wanted that much detail if I'd
been writing pre-development, but whatever. As for which buttons to select,
I didn't specify the buttons, just the action (if that makes sense).
I don't have any Use Cases I can show you (because of confidentiality
stuff - I do government contracts) but if you have any questions or want to
send me one of yours to check out, I'm more than happy to help out. I'll
also look into changing an existing one so it doesn't violate
confidentiality so you have an example (other than the books).
hannah bissell
to -dot- hannah -at- usa -dot- net
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bounce-techwr-l-61338 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
> [mailto:bounce-techwr-l-61338 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Kelly
> Williamson
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 5:34 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Use Cases
>
>
> Can anyone provide me with an example of a use case that has
> actually WORKED
> (read: was useful) in Real Life? We have some use cases that were
> developed
> for us, and I, as well as the programmer, am just not finding them useful
> whatsoever.
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