Formalizing and Automating Use Case Model Development

This paper proposes an approach that formalizes specific elements and activities of the use case modeling proc- ess in order to overcome problematic issues common to the conventional use case methods, namely the lack of systematic elicitation support in the identification of use case elements, the vagueness introduced by the use of informal natural lan- guage to define use case specifications, and the limited support of dedicated software tools that makes UCDA a time- consuming and error-prone activity. In particular, with the use of our approach, formalization of the stage for identifying the use case elements is achieved with the use of predefined types of use cases and actors, specific guidelines to define as- sociations, relationships and business rules, and formalized sentential patterns. Formalization and clarity of the use case specification is achieved with the use of specific types of actions and guidelines, on one hand, and natural language-based authoring rules, on the other. A dedicated software tool supports the automation of the proposed approach including the automated generation of use case diagrams and specifications. Preliminary empirical evaluation of the proposed approach indicated its effectiveness and efficiency.