Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.

From Essential Use Cases to Objects

Robert Biddle
James Noble
Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand)
Ewan Tempero
U niversity of Auckland (New Zealand)

Abstract
One of the main motivations for essential use cases was the context of user
interface design. We, however, have been exploring the application of essential use
cases in general object-oriented system development. Our experience has been ve ry
positive, and we found advantages to essential use cases that assist in both analysis
and in design. This paper outlines two techniques involving essential use cases: use
of role -play in requirements analysis, and distribution of system requirements fro m
essential use cases to objects.

[Keywords: object-oriented design, usage -centered design, essential use cases,

software engineering, user interfaces]

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 forUSE2002

[M22]

From Essential Use Cases

to Objects
Robert Biddle, James Noble, and Ewan Tempero

Abstract
One of the main motivations for essential use cases was the context of
user interface design. We, however, have been exploring the application of
essential use cases in general object-oriented system development. Our
experience has been very positive, and we found advantages to essential
use cases that assist in both analysis and in design. This paper outlines
two techniques involving essential use cases: use of role-play in
requirements analysis, and distribution of system requirements from
essential use cases to objects.

Introduction
Identification and employment of use cases is now common practice in
software development, and the use case is now a recognized concept in
modeling languages and in development processes. Essential use cases
were introduced as a refinement of the general concept, originally
proposed to address needs for technology independence in user interface
design. We feel that essential use cases deserve a wider role, and have

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 1

 forUSE2002
been exploring the application of essential use cases in general object-
oriented software development.
Our motivation to consider essential use cases for general system
development began with some simple advantages. In particular, their
abstraction allows early consideration of interface details to be avoided,
and also allows brevity. As we applied essential use cases in developing a
variety of systems, however, we came to realize there were a number of
deeper benefits.
We began using essential use cases as our prime requirements
gathering tool, and have now used this approach for a number of system
development projects over the last three years. We claim that essential
use cases are suitable for object-oriented software development in
general, and indeed have significant advantages over conventional use
cases. We present a detailed discussion of the advantages elsewhere
[Biddle et al., 2002a].
In this paper, we briefly review the nature of essential use cases, and
then discuss two of the new techniques we have been exploring. The first
technique concerns requirements analysis, and involves the use of role
play for requirements review, which is supported by the nature of essential
use cases. The second technique concerns design, and involves the
distribution of system responsibilities identified in the essential use cases,
yielding a set of objects and their responsibilities constituting an object-
oriented design traceable to the requirements.

Background: Essential Use Cases

The general idea of a use case is to represent intended sequences of
interaction between a system (even if not yet implemented) and the world
outside that system. The definition used in the Rational Unified Process is
that a use case is “a description of a set or sequence of actions, including
variants, that a system performs that yields an observable result of value
to a particular actor” [Jacobson et al., 1999]. Identification of use cases is
beneficial throughout the system development, beginning with early
analysis and continuing thorough to testing and maintenance.
Essential use cases are part of Usage-Centered Design, as developed
by Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood [Constantine and Lockwood,
1999]. Constantine and Lockwood support use cases, and agree with
many claims about their advantages. They also see limitations: “In
particular, conventional use cases typically contain too many built-in

2 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

assumptions, often hidden or implicit, about the form of the user interface
that is yet to be designed.” This is problematic for UI design both because
it forces design decisions to be made very early, and because it then
embeds these decisions in requirements, making them difficult to modify
or adapt at a later time.
Essential use cases were designed to overcome these problems. The
term essential refers to essential models that “are intended to capture the
essence of problems through technology-free, idealized, and abstract
descriptions”. Constantine and Lockwood [1999] define an essential use
case as follows:
An essential use case is a structured narrative, expressed in
the language of the application domain and of users,
comprising a simplified, generalized, abstract, technology-
free and implementation independent description of one
task or interaction that is complete, meaningful, and well-
defined from the point of view of users in some role or roles
in relation to a system and that embodies the purpose or
intentions underlying the interaction.
Essential use cases are documented in a format representing a
dialogue between the user and the system. This resembles a two-column
format used by Wirfs-Brock [Wirfs-Brock, 1993]. In Wirfs-Brock's format,
the column labels refer to the action and the response. Although Wirfs-
Brock does discuss a framework for levels of abstraction in use cases, the
two-column use cases she presents do comprise concrete steps of
interaction between a user and a system.
In contrast, the essential use case format labels the columns user
intention and system responsibility. These new labels indicate how
essential use cases support abstraction by allowing the interaction to be
documented without describing the details of the user interface. Note that
the abstraction does not really relate to the use case as a whole, but more
to the steps of the use case. In this way an essential use case does specify
a sequence of interaction, but a sequence with abstract steps.
Constantine and Lockwood give the examples shown in Figures 1 and
2. The dialogue in Figure 1 is for a conventional use case, described in
terms of actions and responses. The dialogue in Figure 2 is for an
essential use case, described in terms of intentions and responsibilities.
The steps of the essential use case are more abstract, and permit a

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 3

 forUSE2002
variety of concrete implementations. It is still easy to follow the dialogue,
however, and the essential use case is shorter.

Figure 1 – A conventional use case for getting cash from an automatic

teller machine [Constantine and Lockwood, 1999].

Figure 2 – An essential use case for getting cash from an automatic teller
machine [Constantine and Lockwood, 1999].

4 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

Essential Use Cases and Requirements
Our first exploration in using essential use cases was in working with
system requirements. We wanted to make this activity more accessible to
newcomers and non-technical stakeholders, and we wanted the activity to
be done in a way where a variety of people worked together as a team.
For some time now, we have used and admired the CRC (class-
responsibility-collaborator) card technique [Beck and Cunningham, 1989]
for the later stages of object-oriented development. To make use cases
more accessible, we decided to take a similar approach. Our basic idea
was to use index cards for use cases, and to somehow involve role play as
well. This section presents an overview of the ideas: more detailed
discussion is presented elsewhere [Biddle et al., 2001].

Use Case Cards and Role Play

We decided that each use case card should represent a single use case,
should show the name of the use case, and the steps of the dialogue
script. We follow the canonical presentation of an essential use case, and
to distinguish the two roles, we split the card down the centre, and write
the user's lines on the left, and the system’s lines on the right. We initially
drew a straight vertical line down the centre of the card, but found over
time this made it difficult to distinguish use case cards from CRC cards.
After some experimentation, we decided to draw a jagged line down the
centre, which suggests interaction, and makes it easy to tell use case
cards apart from CRC cards. (See figure 3.)

Figure 3 – An essential use case card.

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 5

 forUSE2002
The essential use case style offered us several advantages. Firstly, the
two-column format facilitates role play because a use case in this easy
dialogue form resembles a simple script. The script has two roles, user
and system, so use case role play can simply involve two people, each with
a part in the script. Another important stylistic advantage concerns the
abstraction in essential use cases. The abstraction keeps essential use
cases brief, and so able to fit on an index card. Also, the abstraction helps
avoid unnecessary debate about irrelevant implement details, so allowing
more rapid progress to be made. The focus on intention and responsibility
also has important consequences that we discuss later.
Use case cards and role play assist primarily in elaborating use case
“bodies,” determining the steps of the interaction. Before that can happen
it is first necessary to identify the use cases. This initially involves
background analysis to come up with suggestions for the different ways
users may interact with the system. In large system development, even
use case identification can constitute an activity of significant size and
scope. We use analysis techniques to identify a wide variety of candidate
use cases, and then prioritize them, selecting a few “focal” use cases that
represent critical interactions that will be necessary even in early
prototypes.
Our role play techniques then begins. We start to work on these focal
use cases by elaborating their steps with cards and role play. We generally
suggest doing this with a small team of 3 to 6 people, similar to that
recommended for CRC cards. We begin to work with cards by writing brief
names for the focal use cases on the cards. For example, a banking
system might have focal use cases called depositing cash, checking
account balance, and withdrawing cash.
We then select a card and begin to work out the dialogue. We select
people for the roles of user and system, and use an exploratory kind of
role play rehearsal. The team works together on determining the steps in
the dialogue. When ideas seem reasonable, the role players “play-act”
through the script. The rest of the team audit, and afterwards the dialogue
is discussed and improved where necessary. Increasing availability of
document cameras means cards can easily be projected on a large screen
for larger groups to follow. (See figure 4.)
This process is applied iteratively until the team is satisfied that the
dialogue represents the way the user and the system should interact.
Sometimes it helps to leave one use case and work with another, returning
later to improve the earlier one.

6 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

Figure 4 - Performing a use case role play with use case card shown via
document camera.
One use of role play is for exploratory and iterative development of the
use cases. We also use role play as a way of presenting use cases for
review. Such reviews may be conducted by peer developers, by people
working on other aspects of a project, or by stakeholders or experts in the
system domain.
After the index cards and role play have helped determine the use case
bodies, the full details may be recorded in requirements documentation or
in Case tool databases. The use cases can be used to drive system design
and review, and again later in system testing and demonstration. The
cards and role play may still prove useful in some later activities, where
their immediate and lightweight nature support rapid review and
exploration of interaction alternatives.

Experience and Discussion

Our experience with essential use cases has shown that the simple
benefits are realized, and there are also more profound effects. As we had
hoped, the abstraction does keep the use cases brief enough for an index
card, and also helps avoid premature debate about implementation.
We had explicitly sought active and immediate engagement by team
members, and that has happened as expected. As with CRC cards, the
concrete element of the index cards, together with the behavioural

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 7

 forUSE2002
element of the role play, result in a focus of attention and command active
participation. This alone is valuable because it ensures a focus on
determining requirements that involves the whole team.
The index cards also help in a way that, as with CRC cards, relates to
their simple nature as cards: they are discrete and concrete, and only a
lightweight investment. Cards can be arranged or prioritized on a table top,
needed cards can be selected while leaving others, and cards can held
during role play. A card can be changed or discarded easily without
disturbing others, and the change can made immediately.
The advantages of role play go deeper. People, even non-developers,
are good at following dialogue. Moreover, they are familiar with the
dramatic device of role play and the willing suspension of disbelief on
which drama depends. People are typically able to watch role play, and
imagine the interaction with the finished system with real understanding.
This is a form of fast prototyping, and it allows fast review and feedback
that allows iterative improvement.
On a deeper level still, we have seen there is heuristic merit in casting
the user role as expressing intention, and the system role as expressing
responsibility. Together, these lead to use case dialogues that better
reflect the real motivation of the user, and better capture the
requirements of the system, while at the same time avoiding premature
design decisions.
In our experience, one especially critical early issue in determining
requirements is simply determining the boundary of the system,
distinguishing what the system should do from what it should not do. It
can be very difficult to reach the agreement necessary to make such
distinctions while involving all the people involved, analysts and
stakeholders.
Use case cards and role play have proven very useful in determining
the system boundary. Our approach is to apply an approach familiar in
design: we regard the system as a “black-box.” The internal workings are
not specified, but the way the system is used is specified by the use cases.
The two-column dialog form of each use case card clearly shows the role
of the user distinct from the role of the system, and the line dividing these
roles is the boundary of the system.
There are several ways in which use case role play assists to determine
the system boundary. In early exploratory role play, it can quickly become
clear if team members differ in their understanding about what the system
is required to do. People reading the same analysis documents can come

8 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

up with different interpretations, and it is especially common for
differences to arise between technical designers and business analysts or
domain experts. It is important to detect and resolve such differences
early, and determining actual interaction sequences for role play tends to
expose these differences.
The exploratory role play can also expose unreasonable assumptions
about both the user and the system roles. For the user, it can become
apparent that actions specified in a use case are inconsistent with how an
actual user is likely to behave. For the system, it can become apparent the
required behavior is not possible because critical information will not be
available. Actually play-acting the roles seems to make such anomalies
more obvious than if the use case was just read carefully by someone
alone.
To resolve such anomalies, the use case steps may have to be
modified, or the use case may need to be structured in a different way.
Such changes may require modifications be made to other use cases, and
may even require even creation of new use cases. The important result is
that problems can be identified and fixed at this early point, rather than at
later more expensive points in development.
Role play also makes use case interaction understandable to
observers outside a development team. This is especially useful in
presenting use cases to busy stakeholders. Role play is quick, immersive,
and very accessible. Without heavy investment, it makes it possible to
discuss issues, compare alternatives, and possibly detect flaws.
We have found there are some considerations needed in working with
essential use cases. One is that use case role play will itself be abstract,
and so not as realistic as if it involved specific interface details. In our
experience this has not been problematic, although teams do find it
helpful to sometimes consider concrete enactments of the use case to
check their understanding. The origin of essential use cases is in user
interface design. In typical practice, the system responsibilities are limited
to responsibilities directly concerning interaction. The semantics of deeper
responsibilities for system behavior are typically left unexplored. We have
found, however, that it is possible to include these deeper responsibilities
where helpful. For example, the use case in the earlier figure might well
involve responsibilities to maintain account balance integrity and to audit
trail entries.
We have also been exploring tool support for requirements analysis
with essential use cases. In particular, we have developed a web-based

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 9

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tool that facilities recording essential use cases, and also assists in using
essential use cases to begin the design process [Biddle et al., 2002c].

Essential Use Cases and Design

One of the distinguishing features of essential use cases is the abstraction
in the dialog steps, where the user is associated with intention and the
system is associated with responsibility. In object-oriented design, the
term responsibility already holds a special role. In particular, responsibility
is the pivotal concept in CRC cards, and in Responsibility-Driven Design.
The identification of responsibilities in essential use cases therefore
affords a new way to link use cases to object-oriented designs.
In the CRC card technique, class responsibility helps determine system
articulation, and this originally pedagogical tool is now seen as useful in
the context of overall system development [Bellin and Suchman Simone,
1997; Wilkinson, 1995]. In responsibility-driven design [Wirfs-Brock et al.,
1990; Wirfs-Brock and Wilkerson, 1989] the idea of responsibility is used
more thoroughly and on a larger scale. Responsibilities are associated
with objects, and represent knowledge an object maintains, or actions an
object can perform. Responsibilities thus emphasize abstract behavior
while being silent about possible implementation structure.
Both CRC and responsibility-driven design involve the concept of
responsibility to guide making design decisions. In particular, these
techniques suggest that in an object-oriented system, each object or class
should have a coherent and well-understood set of responsibilities. In this
way, responsibility is used as a heuristic to partition a system into
collaborating objects with the overall responsibilities distributed
reasonably.
A basic principle of object-oriented design is that objects involve
behavior and information that work together. Responsibility is a good
heuristic for determining this, because the word responsibility usually
suggests both a duty to do something, and the resources with which to do
it. Responsibility also allows delegation, allowing large responsibilities to
be managed by delegating smaller responsibilities to others.
Responsibility involves both abstraction and encapsulation [Wirfs-
Brock and Wilkerson, 1989]:
The responsibility-driven approach emphasizes the
encapsulation of both the structure and behavior of objects.
By focusing on the contractual responsibilities of a class, the

10 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

 designer is able to postpone implementation considerations
until the implementation phase.
In essential use cases, the idea of a responsibility is to identify what
the system must do to support the use case, without making commitments
as to how it will actually be done. This resembles object encapsulation,
where the internals of an object cannot be directly accessed from outside,
and it has similar benefits. This role of responsibility in use cases is
entirely consistent with the role of responsibility in design. Both describe
behavior without describing implementation. This commonality presents
valuable opportunities to link the way we work when determining
requirements and the way we work when determining design.

Distribution of System Responsibilities

So responsibility is a powerful concept, and already familiar as a heuristic
in object-oriented design. Essential use cases also involve responsibility as
a similar heuristic. There seems to be a valuable opportunity to harness
this connection. We can regard essential use cases as indicating a starting
state for design. From this viewpoint, the system is like a single object.
This a helpful attitude to foster while working out use cases, because it
discourages concern for internal system design at too early a stage. Note
that this is the same principle we used in requirements analysis, where we
regarded the system as a “black-box” while determining the system
boundary.
The idea of the system as a single object can be used as a way to
begin design and then to develop design. We take the system
responsibilities as documented in the essential use cases, and
consolidate these as a coherent set. We then regard the system overall as
an object having this set of responsibilities, in the same way that in CRC
design each object has a set of responsibilities. The design process is then
to distribute the responsibilities in this single object among a set of
objects. We call this approach Distribution of System Responsibilities
(DSR).
A typical CRC procedure would begin with a set of candidate classes or
objects, each with an initial suggestion of responsibilities. The procedure
would then follow use cases to explore the distribution, amending objects
and responsibilities iteratively. The alternative DSR procedure would be to
begin with the single system object and its responsibilities, and then begin
to follow CRC. As with typical CRC, we would also identify a set of

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 11

 forUSE2002
candidate objects and their responsibilities, and we would also explore the
design as driven by use cases.
However, we begin with a working design consisting of a single object.
We then explore by sharing the responsibilities between candidate objects,
or delegating some responsibilities to candidate objects. As with more
typical CRC, we explore and amend objects and responsibilities iteratively.
This approach seems true to the spirit of CRC in every way, and merely
provides a more definite starting state.
The advantage of DSR at the beginning is that we start out with the
responsibilities from the use cases in mind, so that our initial CRC object
role play addresses the system interaction from the essential use cases.
As we progress, and especially as we near a complete design, the
advantage is that the set of responsibilities of the objects must together
still meet the responsibilities identified in the essential use cases.
In general, the advantage of DSR is traceability: we should we able to
link the responsibilities of the design to the responsibilities identified in
the essential use cases. There is also a related secondary advantage.
While traceability allows us to check requirements against design, DSR
also offers operational guidance while doing design. Thus at any point in
the iterative design process, one possible approach to is to distribute the
essential use case responsibilities further, or to redistribute
responsibilities in a different way.
Of course, we acknowledge that strictly distributing system
responsibilities is not a complete design technique. In particular, it does
not have all the advantages of CRC cards in working from known to
unknown objects, nor the advantages of responsibility-driven design in
identifying abstract higher levels of the design. However, we do believe
that DSR does offer useful advantages of both traceability and operational
guidance that can work together with CRC cards or responsibility-driven
design.

Example: Sokoban
In this section, we present a small detailed example of working from a set
of essential use cases toward a workable object-oriented design via
distribution of system responsibilities. The example is a program to play
the game “Sokoban”. In this paper we just present this example to support
the discussion above. More details on this particular design exercise are
available elsewhere [Biddle et al., 2002b].

12 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

 Sokoban is a type of puzzle involving “boxes,” “shelves,” and “walls” in
a warehouse. The object is to place all boxes on shelves when the only
operation available is “push box.” There are several variations. The one
used for this case study is as follows:
The Sokoban game consists of a set of levels. Each level
describes a warehouse, consisting of a set of walls, shelves,
and boxes, and the starting position of the worker. The
worker may move into any empty location, or may move into
a location occupied by a box, provided the location beside
the box opposite from the worker is either empty or contains
an empty shelf. That is, workers may only “push” boxes.
Once all the boxes are on shelves, the level is completed,
and the next level is started. Once all levels are completed
the game is over. If this happens without the player either
restarting a level, or skipping any levels, then they may enter
their name in the Hall of Fame.
This is the kind of description that might be given to a student in a first
year programming course, and, as a consequence, it is perhaps more
carefully worded than might normally be the case. Figure 5 shows what a
solution may look like.

Figure 5: Example of a Sokoban level showing the worker, three shelves,

and three boxes, one on a shelf.

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 13

 forUSE2002
This section describes the requirements for the Sokoban system as a
set of essential use cases (EUCs). The convention with EUCs is to be as
concise as possible in describing the bodies of the use cases. Thus, they
typically do not begin with an action such as “choosingOperation”, as that
is implied by the EUC name. Also, it would usually be the case that the
actors related to the use cases would be specified, but in this case there is
only one actor (the player). The essential use cases for Sokoban are shown
below.

StartingGame
USER INTENTION SYSTEM RESPONSIBILITY

Request the player's name

Provide name

Record player's name

Set the current Level to be the first Level
Set the current Level to its initial configuration
Show the current Level

OpeningLevel
PRE-CONDITIONS: Level specification must be valid.

USER INTENTION SYSTEM RESPONSIBILITY

Specify level

Read the description of the specified Level

Set the current Level to be the specified Level
Set the current Level to its initial configuration
Show the current Level
If the current level is any level other than the first
one, record that the player cannot enter the Hall of
Fame

14 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

RestartingLevel
USER INTENTION SYSTEM RESPONSIBILITY

Set the current Level to its initial configuration

Show the current Level
If the current level is any level other than the first
one, record that the player cannot enter the Hall of
Fame

MovingWorker
PRE-CONDITIONS: Specified direction must be valid

USER INTENTION SYSTEM RESPONSIBILITY

Specify direction

If the Location adjacent to the Worker in the

direction specified is empty, or it contains a Box and
the Location adjacent to it in the specified direction is
either empty or contains an empty shelf, then move
the Worker in the direction specified, and if there is a
box, move it as well
Show the current Level
If all the boxes in the Level are on a shelf, then
load the next Level
If the current Level is the last one, and the player is
eligible for the Hall of Fame, then record the player's
name in the Hall of Fame

ShowingHallofFame
USER INTENTION SYSTEM RESPONSIBILITY

List all players in the Hall of Fame

We now present a series of iterations an object-oriented design for the

Sokoban system. The designs are presented as a set of CRC “cards”. The
responsibilities in each class are labeled so that traceability between the

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 15

 forUSE2002
requirements and the design can be tracked. This can be developed
further, but for the moment we just note that whenever responsibilities are
changed or delegated, we indicate their relationship to other
responsibilities using these labels.
In the interests of space, we use the convention here that any
responsibilities completely delegated to another class will not be shown in
the delegating class. Responsibilities that are only partially delegated, will
however still be listed (possibly changed in some way).

Iteration 1: The System Object

The first iteration of the design is the S y s t e m O b j e c t , a single class whose
responsibilities are those listed as system responsibilities in the EUCs,
which means this design is guaranteed to provide the behavior specified in
the requirements. Here, we just list the responsibilities (in alphabetical
order), as there are obviously no collaborators for this class.

System Object
SO1 If all the boxes in the Level are on a shelf, then load the next Level
SO2 If the Location adjacent to the Worker in the direction specified is empty, or it
contains a Box and the Location adjacent to it in the specified direction is
either empty or contains an empty shelf, then move the Worker in the
direction specified, and if there is a box, move it as well
SO3 If the current Level is the last one, and the player is eligible for the Hall of
Fame, then record the player's name in the Hall of Fame
SO4 If the current level is any level other than the first one, record that the player
cannot enter the Hall of Fame
SO5 List all players in the Hall of Fame
SO6 Read the description of the specified Level
SO7 Record player's name

SO8 Request the player's name

SO9 Set the current Level to be the first Level
S O 1 0 Set the current Level to be the specified Level
S O 1 1 Set the current Level to its initial configuration
S O 1 2 Show the current Level

16 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

Iteration 2
Examining the S y s t e m O b j e c t in the earlier section, we immediately note
the frequent use of “Level.” This suggests that providing a L e v e l class may
reduce the amount of work that the S y s t e m O b j e c t is responsible for. Once
we have done that, we determine how we might delegate some of the
S y s t e m O b j e c t responsibilities to the new class.
In doing this, we will be changing the responsibilities of the S y s t e m
O b j e c t . We change the name of the resulting class to better reflect its role
in the design, namely the main interface to the application, to S o k o b a n .
Because this class presents the same view of the system as the S y s t e m
O b j e c t , it should have the same set of responsibilities; it just may delegate
some of them to other classes.

Sokoban
SO1 If all the boxes in the Level are on a shelf, then load the next Level (partially
delegated to LEV1)
SO2.1 Given a direction, move the Worker in that direction (replaces S O 2 , partially
delegated to LEV4)
SO3 If the current Level is the last one, and the player is eligible for the Hall of
Fame, then record the player's name in the Hall of Fame

SO4 If the current level is any level other than the first one, record that the player
cannot enter the Hall of Fame
SO5 List all players in the Hall of Fame
SO7 Record player's name
SO8 Request the player's name
SO9 Set the current Level to be the first Level
S O 1 0 Set the current Level to be the specified Level
S O 1 1 Set the current Level to its initial configuration (partially delegated to L E V 2 )
S O 1 2 Show the current Level (partially delegated to L E V 3 )

Collaborators: Level

The decision that deserves some discussion is how S O 2 gets

distributed to Level. There are possibly a number of ways this distribution
could have been done. Because this case study is not trying to produce

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 17

 forUSE2002
the “best” design, but merely a “good” design, the focus here is on
whether the decisions were reasonable, rather than the best.

Level
LEV1 Report whether all the boxes in the Level on a shelf
LEV2 Set to initial configuration
LEV3 Show all the details of the Level
LEV4 Given a direction, if the Location adjacent to the Worker in that direction is
empty, or it contains a Box and the Location adjacent to it in that direction is
either empty or contains an empty shelf, then move the Worker in the
direction specified, and if there is a box, move it as well
LEV5 Read description and create

In this case, we intend the Level class in this design to deal with all
aspects of what has happened and can happen in a particular level. This
includes tracking where the Worker is, and where Locations are with
respect to each other. This being the case, it seems reasonable to
delegate large parts of S O 2 to this class.

Iteration 3
This iteration focuses on the Level class. Its repeated use of the term
location suggests that a L o c a t i o n class would be useful. This has the
following impact on the design (SS o k o b a n is unchanged).

Location
L O C 0 Given position and contents, be created
L O C 1 Show details (render representation according to contents) at position
L O C 2 Indicate contents (empty, B o x,
x empty S h e l f , full S h e l f , W o r k e r,
r Wall)
L O C 3 Move Worker in or out (as specified)

L O C 4 Move B o x in or out (as specified); if the contents is an empty or full S h e l f , then

change as appropriate

The design decision is that a L e v e l will consist of a set of L o c a t i o n s.

s
Each L o c a t i o n has a position (where it will be drawn) and contents. It is up

18 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

to the L e v e l class to keep track of how different L o c a t i o n s relate to each
other.

Level
LEV1 Report whether all the boxes in the Level on a shelf (partially delegated to
LOC2)
LEV2.1 Read description of current level and from that create locations and assign
positions and contents (replaces L E V 2 , partially delegated to L O C 0 )
LEV3.1 Have each location show its details (replaces L E V 3 , partially delegated to
LOC1)
LEV4 Given a direction, if the Location adjacent to the Worker in that direction is
empty, or it contains a Box and the Location adjacent to it in that direction is
either empty or contains an empty shelf, then move the Worker in the
direction specified, and if there is a box, move it as well (partially delegated
to L O C 2 , L O C 3 , and L O C 4 )
LEV5.1 Given level identification, read description of specified level and from that
create locations and assign positions and contents (replaces L E V 5 , partially
delegated to L O C 0 )
Collaborators: Location

Iteration 4
Returning to the S o k o b a n class, we note the need for maintaining details
about the player, suggesting a P l a y e r class.

Player
P1 Request and record name, and make eligible for the Hall of Fame
P2 Make ineligible for Hall of Fame
P3 Report name

P4 Report if eligible for Hall of Fame

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 19

 forUSE2002
Sokoban
SO1 If all the boxes in the L e v e l are on a shelf, then load the next L e v e l (partially
delegated to LE V 1 )

SO2.1 Given a direction, move the Worker in that direction. (partially delegated to
LEV4)
SO3 If the current Level is the last one, and the player is eligible for the Hall of
Fame, then record the player's name in the Hall of Fame (partially delegated
to P 3 and P 4 )
SO4 If the current level is any level other than the first one, record that the player
cannot enter the Hall of Fame (partially delegated to P 2 )
SO5 List all players in the Hall of Fame
SO9 Set the current L e v e l to be the first L e v e l

S O 1 0 Set the current L e v e l to be the specified L e v e l

S O 1 1 Set the current L e v e l to its initial configuration (partially delegated to L E V 2 )
S O 1 2 Show the current Level (partially delegated to L E V 3 )
Collaborators: Level, Player

Iteration 5
Finally, we create a H a l l O f F a m e class, which takes over more of the
responsibilities of the S o k o b a n class. This is the final design in our case
study. While other iterations may be possible, what we have is quite a
good start; it is a design that we are quite confident satisfies the
requirements and the responsibilities seem fairly well distributed. We
could use this as a starting point for application of other techniques, such
as responsibility-driven design.

HallOfFame
HOF1 Read names of players (from S O 3 , S O 5 )
HOF2 Add name of player (from S O 3 )
HOF3 Write names of players (from S O 3 )

HOF4 Display names of players (from S O 5 )

20 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

Sokoban
S1 If all the boxes in the L e v e l are on a shelf, then load the next Level (partially
delegated to LEV1)
SO2.1 Given a direction, move the W o r k e r in that direction. (replaces S O 2 , partially
delegated to L E V 4 )
SO3 If the current L e v e l is the last one, and the player is eligible for the Hall of
Fame, then record the player's name in the Hall of Fame (partially delegated
to P 3 , P 4 , H O F 1 , H O F 2 , and H O F 3 )
SO4 If the current L e v e l is any L e v e l other than the first one, record that the player
cannot enter the Hall of Fame (partially delegated to P 2 )
SO5 List all players in the Hall of Fame (partially delegated to H O F 1 and H O F 4 )
SO9 Set the current L e v e l to be the first L e v e l
S O 1 0 Set the current L e v e l to be the specified L e v e l
S O 1 1 Set the current L e v e l to its initial configuration (partially delegated to L E V 2 )
S O 1 2 Show the current Level (partially delegated to L E V 3 )
Collaborators: Level, Player, HallOfFame

Conclusions
Use cases are seen as beneficial in many aspects of system development,
and the refinement of essential use cases was originally made to address
needs in user interface design. We have been exploring the application of
essential use cases in general system design.
Our initial motivation concerned straightforward aspects of essential
use cases. Essential use cases support role play well, because of the use
of dialogue. They are brief, and can be developed quickly, because they
avoid unnecessary debate about implementation details. We also found
deeper advantages that relate to many aspects of system development.
Most importantly, the abstraction of essential use cases comes from
identifying user intentions and system responsibilities, and these both act
as heuristics that benefit software development.
Some of the advantages flow from the heritage that essential use
cases have from user interface design. In requirements analysis,
therefore, they emphasize the dialogue of interaction, and emphasize a
focus on users, or actors, to inspire reasonable interaction. In this way
essential use cases can provide an effect similar to the early development

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 21

 forUSE2002
of user interface prototypes as an input to system design. In this paper we
outlined our approach to using essential use cases with cards and role
play for requirements analysis and review.
Other advantages concern system design based on the use cases. The
system responsibilities can also be extended to include responsibilities
that go beyond interaction with the user, and so document important
contextual functionality. The responsibilities determined can also be used
as a starting point for design by distribution of system responsibilities. In
this paper we outlined our approach to using this distribution of
responsibilities to develop an object-oriented design directly from the
essential use cases, and we showed a detailed example. The approach
offers the advantage of traceability, plus some operation guidance in
design.

References
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oriented thinking. Proc. of OOPSLA-89: ACM Conference on Object-
Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications. pp. 1-6.
ACM Press.
Bellin, D. and Suchman Simone, S. (1997) The CRC Card Book. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley.
Biddle, R., Noble, J. and Tempero, E. (2001) Role-play and use case cards
for requirements review. In D. Cecez-Kecmanovic, B. Lo and G. Pervan
(eds), Proceedings of the Australasian Conference on Information
Systems (ACIS2001). Coff's Harbor, NSW, Australia.
Biddle, R., Noble, J. and Tempero, E. (2002a) Essential use cases and
responsibility in object-oriented development. In M. Oudshoorn (ed.),
Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Conference
(ACSC2002). Melbourne, Australia: Australian Computer Society.
Biddle, R., Noble, J. and Tempero, E. (2002b) Sokoban: A system object
case study. In J. Noble and J. Potter (eds), Proceedings of Technology
of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems (TOOLS-Pacific). Sydney,
Australia: Australian Computer Society.
Biddle, R., Noble, J. and Tempero, E. (2002c) Supporting reusable use
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Tools, 7th International Conference, ICSR-7, Austin, TX, USA, April 15-
19, 2002, Proceedings, Vol. 2319 of Lecture Notes in Computer
Science. Springer.

22 Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects

Constantine, L. L., and Lockwood, L. A. D. (1999) Software for Use: A
Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design.
Boston: Addison-Wesley.
Jacobson, I., Booch, G., and Rumbaugh, J. (1999) The Unified Software
Development Process. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Wilkinson, N. (1995) Using CRC Cards - An Informal Approach to OO
Development. London: Cambridge University Press.
Wirfs-Brock, R. J. (1993) Designing scenarios: Making the case for a use
case framework, The Smalltalk Report 3 (3).
Wirfs-Brock, R. and Wilkerson, B. (1989) Object-oriented design: A
responsibility-driven approach, in N. Meyrowitz (ed.) Proc. of OOPSLA-
89: ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programming Systems
Languages and Applications, pp. 71-75. ACM Press.
Wirfs-Brock, R., Wilkerson, B., and Wiener, L. (1990) Designing Object
Oriented Software. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Biddle, Noble, and Tempero: Use Cases to Objects 23

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