Nowadays, the topicality and applicability of model-driven development in the object-oriented development approach has increased, so it is important that created models and diagrams display not only the content, but also visually reflect information. Transparent diagram placement that influences work productivity is important for displaying information. Manual layout of diagrams is a time-consuming activity, which can also be ineffective, so in this paper the application of UML use case automatic layout is reviewed. The paper also examines the requirements of use case diagrams and placement criteria, which will serve as a basis for the creation of an automatic use case diagram layout algorithm.