Use Case

A Use Case is a technique for capturing, modelling and specifying the requirements of a system. A use case corresponds to a set of behaviours that the system may perform in interaction with its actors, and which produces an observable result that contribute to its goals. Actors represent the role that human users or other systems have in the interaction. In the requirement analysis, at their identification, a use case is named according to the specific user-goal that it represents for its primary actor. The case is further detailed with a textual description or with additional graphical models that explains the general sequence of activities and events, as well as variants such as special conditions, exceptions or error situations. According to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK), use cases belong to the scenario-based requirement elicitation techniques, as well as the model-based analysis techniques. But the use cases also supports narrative-based requirement gathering, incremental requirement acquisition, system documentation, and acceptance testing.