When Use Cases Aren’t Enough

Although use cases are valuable for many projects, sometimes event analysis is a more effective requirements elicitation technique.

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I’ve been an enthusiastic supporter of use cases ever since I discovered what a valuable requirements elicitation tool they are. Use cases shift the elicitation participants’ focus from the product and its features to exploring what users need to do with the product. That usage-centric emphasis then leads to an understanding of the solution’s necessary capabilities and characteristics.

Use cases describe the goals that particular users wish to accomplish through their interactions with a system. The central element of a use case description is a step-by-step dialogue that takes place between the primary user, the system, and possibly additional users, systems, or components. Because of that use case structure, they’re effective tools for understanding interactive systems in which a user initiates a session to achieve a specific objective.

Valuable as they are, use cases aren’t the ideal tool for every type of product. A complementary requirements elicitation strategy is to explore the various events that a system or product could experience and how it should respond to each of them. The response depends on what state the system…