[IxDA Discuss] A tool for managing use cases / requirements
Jeff Axup
axup at userdesign.com
Sat Mar 24 14:23:28 PDT 2007
Thanks to all who have replied. I think this is a great issue to be talking
about as it is often glossed over in many "user-centered" processes and yet
is absolutely critical to good UCD. Part of the issue here is terminology.
Software engineering uses the term 'use case' to refer to very detailed
technical interactions between network components, and occasionally a user.
They rarely focus on user task flow, user roles or discrete steps in UIs
encountered. However, increasingly use cases have been adapted for HCI
purposes.
In "Understanding Your Users: A Practical Guide to User Requirements
Methods, Tools, and Techniques" if I'm not mistaken the authors say
"Scenarios (sometimes called use cases)". I personally think they're
different things. Scenarios are much more specific. They are used to
evaluate specific user roles (or possibly personas) in a given specific
situation, and to look at what would likely happen. UCD Use cases are
higher-level, process oriented, and include alternate sub-use-cases, and
possibly scenarios as way to explore implications of the use case (but they
are more user-centric than SE use cases). Use cases should be (as much as
possible) complete. Trying to document every possible scenario is an
exercise in futility.
Todd, replies to questions inline below. We are still exploring what the
process should be for this project, but I'll take some educated guesses.
On 3/23/07, Todd Moy <oombrella at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Jeff - I think I understand what you're asking, but not well enough
> to propose a solution. I have a few in mind, but I'd like a bit more
> information.
>
> My questions:
> You mentioned subsets of use cases. Can a use case appear as a child
> of many different, higher level use cases...or will it have one parent
> only?
JA: My immediate answer would be that unlike many of the rest of the links,
this would seem to be one to many. But I wouldn't be surprised if we end up
with some cases where a task flow is a part of multiple higher-level task
flows, so actually this is probably many-many relationship.
What is the difference between a user role and a persona, with regard
> to how they relate to use cases and to one another? Is there a
> relationship between a user role and a persona?
JA: I'm still figuring out how personas fit in to tell you the truth. Anyone
have ideas on that? We are developing them, more as a common language and
shorthand within the team. I think we could develop a few scenarios around
them since they are more flushed out user characters. However, I'm currently
basing most the use cases and requirements around user roles. I've assigned
one example persona per user role, just so we have a reminder of a human
behind the role. I expect that there will be a many-many relationship
between roles and top-level use cases (Roles will have many top-level use
cases supporting them, and a top-level use case will support various roles).
I also would like to link Requirements to Roles and Use Cases (the
requirement justifies the use case and explains who has the requirement),
which is many>many.
Would there be a primary means of organizing or accessing this
> information? For example, could you use a tree as a primary structure,
> but annotate the cases and requirements with metadata to provide an
> auxilliary method of navigation?
JA: A definite possibility. I could do a role > 1st level use case mapping
chart. But it would require updating, and the connection to lower levels
wouldn't be clear, and I'm wasting a lot of time on updating diagrams with
change iterations anyway. (if only we had a digital tool where we could
electronically post a mockup to a group, have everyone add comments
digitally and visually, everyone see the collective comments digitally, and
then get a digital copy of it sent to you to revise changes, but I digress.)
Is there a requirement to version the documents throughout
> time--either the use cases, the scenarios, or the requirements?
JA: That would be nice. I thoroughly expect many many changes to occur in
these documents as a) we determine what is important b) we add more detail
to the use cases c) we learn more about user behavior d) the market and
usage environment change. It would be great to be able to annotate why some
requirements were demoted in priority, or why use cases were altered based
on site visit results etc.
--
>
> Altogether, it doesn't seem that your dilemma is that unique. I
> immediately think of source code versioning systems (like Subversion),
> content management systems (like Ellington), Wikis (like Trac), etc. I
> use Serena Dimensions for managing artifacts and requirements, but I
> hesitate to force that solution on you without more info.
JA: Thanks. Yes, I expect that some SE tools might be adapted for this
purpose. The main thing that would be a problem is automatic graph
generation showing social-network or tree style graphs, and the ability to
differentiate between requirements, use cases, sub use-cases, etc. And
probably a method of importing an initial spreadsheet of the main data set
would be good.
You might also redefine your requirements by thinking broadly about
> what you're trying to accomplish. Once you strip away terms like
> "personas", "use cases", and "requirements", it appears that you're
> just organizing text and images that can be described by different
> attributes. Maybe a basic document management system that provides
> both a structured hierarchy and the ability to tag assets would be
> useful.
JA: An excellent idea! A requirement, a use case, a scenario, and a role
description are all just text documents (or short lists)(personas would have
images). Each could be viewed as a separate document and perhaps should be.
However in that scenario we have easily hundreds if not a thousand documents
to manage. That could be fine in a document control system, but it would be
a necessity to be able to categorize the documents into the various types
(req, UC, scenario, role) and be able to create ties between items, and be
able to graph those relationships in a reasonable manner.
Several books have mentioned card sorts for doing this task. Are they
insane?! It might be useful for initial organization, but manually writing
out cards, manual updating, scaling to a large project, getting distributed
group review? Doesn't seem feasible.
Any more tool suggests after knowing the above?
-Jeff
-Todd
>
>
>
>
> On 3/23/07, Jeff Axup <axup at userdesign.com> wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'm working on a project where we're entering into a large requirements
> > analysis stage. This will involve a large number of use cases (often
> called
> > scenarios). The use cases need to be directly tied to corresponding
> > requirements. There will be high and low level use cases, with some as
> > subsets of others. Additionally, they need to be tied to user roles (and
> > personas at times), and there will often be a many-to-one pairing
> between
> > roles and uses cases, and requirements and use cases. So a static tree
> model
> > probably won't work.
> >
> > This points to the need for a tool to organize this and present it in a
> > dynamic manner (via a web page with an underlying database comes to
> mind.)
> > I've been thinking about using Excel, MS project, Word outlines, or a
> > hand-coded DB with a web front end, but all seem to fall short in terms
> of
> > effectiveness and ease of use.
> >
> > Has anyone found a good tool (either specifically for use case
> organization,
> > or for more general management of data in cross-referenced trees) which
> > they've used for this in the past? Any thoughts on usability of these
> > (potential) products?
> >
> > Best Regards,
> > Jeff
> >
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> > Jeff Axup, Ph.D.
> > Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San Diego
> >
> > Research: Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group
> Usability
> > E-mail: axup <at> userdesign.com
> > Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com
> > Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com
> > Academic: http://www.infenv.itee.uq.edu.au
> >
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> > ________________________________________________________________
> > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> > To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> > List Guidelines ............ http://listguide.ixda.org/
> > List Help .................. http://listhelp.ixda.org/
> > (Un)Subscription Options ... http://subscription-options.ixda.org/
> > Announcements List ......... http://subscribe-announce.ixda.org/
> > Questions .................. lists at ixda.org
> > Home ....................... http://ixda.org/
> > Resource Library ........... http://resources.ixda.org
> >
>
>
> --
> ____________________________
> oombrella | User Experience Design
> http://www.oombrella.com
> oombrella at gmail.com
>
--
Best Regards,
Jeff
____________________________________________________________________________
Jeff Axup Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting, San
Diego
Research: Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability
E-mail: axup <at> userdesign.com
Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com
Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com
Academic: http://www.infenv.itee.uq.edu.au
____________________________________________________________________________
More information about the discuss
mailing list