Use case specifications: How complete are they?

Abstract

The flexibility of the use cases in specifying requirements from informal textual descriptions to more formal ones makes them usable in different contexts and purposes. However, the versatility of use cases regarding their admissible structure raises a natural concern about the specification completeness. This paper reports on the analysis of the eight different variants of use case template regarding their functional completeness, ability to express the set of particular functionalities, by comparing their information contents exercised by comprehensive questionnaires on five different problem specifications. The questionnaire was obtained from two sources: one based on the understanding of the functionality to be implemented and the other based on the functionality documented in eight different use case templates under study. Our results suggested that use cases can be used to specify a complete set of requirements intended to develop a software system. We found that the choice of a use case template influences the completeness of the specification. A more detailed analysis of the eight different variants of use case template resulted in the identification of 21 significant use case elements. We showed that by incorporating these significant use case elements in a given template, the completeness of the specification could be further enhanced.

The Requirement Cube

“…5W1H is widely used in different stages of the RE process (Tiwari & Gupta, 2020), to clarify the whole process of RE (Westfall, 2005), identify the scenarios from user stories to determine use cases (Ali & Lai, 2017), structure free text user requirements in an automated way (Jabar et al, 2013), build an ontology framework to classify the concepts in requirement elicitation (Awal, Gana, & Abdulrahman, 2018), or check the completeness of use case templates (Tiwari & Gupta, 2020). In summary, 5W1H has been used in three stages of the RE process: elicitation, analysis, and validation (Tiwari & Gupta, 2020). This paper proposes to utilize it in the specification stage as well, and we are not aware of other studies employing this methodology.…”

“…However, they are not the ultimate solution for requirement specification. The effectiveness of the use case may vary based on the chosen use case template (Tiwari & Gupta, 2020). Use cases can only take place in describing functional requirements (Lethbridge & Laganiere, 2005).…”

“…Several templates are proposed in order to cope with these problems, such as Use Cases, activity diagrams, and requirement templates, etc. (Tiwari & Gupta, 2020).…”

Warehouse management system enhancement for a-to-z textiles limited

“…Use case diagram is the diagram which shows the interaction of users and the system using use cases, use cases is the action performed by a user in the system, and the actions performed by a user is known as use cases (Tiwari & Gupta, 2020). Actors are the system users.…”