From Use Case Diagrams to Context Diagrams

As long as practitioners recognize that use case diagrams are optional and iconic (as opposed to schematic), they shouldn't have problems. The diagrams are useful, for example, on whiteboards as a way of sketching and framing an agenda while people are writing up and reviewing use case detail on index cards.

The trouble starts, however, when projects end up with unreadable and overly complex use case diagrams. Those diagrams distract project members from the more useful endeavor of elaborating the use cases and result in wasted time. And the major value of the use case diagram -- showing the context of a software system -- ends up lost in a cloud of bubbles.

Author: Kevlin Henney