The first step is developing a use case is defining a set of actors. While it will normally be a “user”, it might also be “an automated/scheduled system”, “an administrator”, etc.

There will likely be different actors in the system, or different roles that the same person might play.

When building the use case you need to be aware of several aspects:

  • Who is the primary actor?
  • Is there a secondary actor?
  • What preconditions are needed?
  • What task is being performed?
  • What exceptions are acceptable?
  • Are there other ways to perform this task?
  • What will the system produce, acquire, or change?
  • Does the actor have to configure the system based upon external information?
  • Does the actor need to know about changes once this this task is completed?

Developing Use Cases was originally found on Access 2 Learn

Assistant Professor

Walter Wimberly is an Assistant Professor at a regional college in Tennessee, teaching Computer Science in the Software Engineering track. He works as a student advisor, oversees curriculum changes, develops new courses, and manages the advisory panel.
Walter taught full time for about 7 years, before going back into “industry” as a full stack Software Developer for a dozen years. There he focused on web based projects coding in JavaScript/jQuery and utilizing the Bootstrap CSS Framework on the front-end, and coding in PHP, ASP/ASP.Net, SQL on the back-end.

Since he loves teaching, he taught as an adjunct web and digital media classes for eight (8) years, while working in industry, and has since returned to teaching full time.

He has been married for over 25 years, and is father to several special needs boys. As such, he is working on some projects to help others who have special needs to be self-sufficient, and support the care givers of those with special needs. Check out his Autism blog for more info.

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