Archive of UML Modeling Articles

In this article, we build on our ability to represent straight forward business relationships in UML class diagrams. These relationships describe how two objects are related to each other. Representing relationships in class diagrams helps us to better understand the domain and helps us to uncover hidden requirements. Occasionally, we have to deal with more complex relationships that involve more than two objects to properly describe. This does not happen as frequently, but when it does, our modeling efforts are more likely to uncover overlooked requirements. In this article we learn how to describe relationships that involve more than two objects.

The hardest part of gathering requirements effectively is uncovering the requirements that people don’t immediately tell you. You have to ask the right questions. And one of the best ways to find the right questions to build a class diagram of the business domain. This article continues our introduction to class diagrams.

UML Class Diagrams are very effective at uncovering requirements. They give us insight into how the business thinks about objects and their relationships. And from that understanding, we think to ask questions we might otherwise overlook. In this part of our series, we look at how to represent when one object is made up of other objects. The two types of relationships we explore are composition and aggregation.

We continue our exploration of UML Class Diagrams with this article that explores how to represent basic business relationships in a class diagram. Drawing these relationships can dramatically clarify requirements documents. Using a class diagram to supplement other requirements documents provides for a centralized reference that enables a shared understanding of the problem domain. That understanding prevents mistakes in interpreting requirements.

UML Class Diagrams can be used not only for documenting software design, but for documenting software requirements. One of the challenges in writing clear, unambiguous requirements is being precise about what a particular word means. This is especially true with symbolic terms like “quote” or “customer” - where everyone knows what they mean - but they mean different things to different people.

Documenting processes is something most business analysts have to do. The goal of documenting the process is to communicate requirements. By establishing a shared understanding of the process, you can establish the context for the requirements. Easy processes are easy to draw and understand. When documenting a more complex process, you need to provide the same clarity and consistency. In this article we show how to document asynchronous process steps to maximize the clarity of the documentation.

More iteration in our agile project. In this article, we make several updates to the domain model (UML class diagram) based upon discussions on all of the articles in the series. More than a couple dozen in the last day. Thanks to everyone who has helped with feedback and encouragement - just awesome!

Along with design sketches and requirements, as part of the concurrent design and requirements development for our agile project, we have created a UML class diagram representing the domain. This iterative process allows us to incorporate the benefits of each perspective rapidly with the others in our race to prototype a working site.

This article reviews the domain model.

With a definition of the important use cases for our agile project, we can move to the logical next step - which is what exactly?

Prototyping.

UML Statecharts can be very effective modeling tools for describing systems and software requirements. They provide a clear framework for identifying business rules. The same business rules often apply to multiple states - defining a commonality for those states. There is an element called a substate in UML statecharts that can be used to make it more obvious that a particular business rule applies to multiple states.