Structured approach to writing use-cases: (taken from A. Cockburn: Writing Effective Use Cases, Addison Wesley, 2000)

  • Name
  • Short description
  • Precondition: prerequisite for successful execution
  • Postcondition: system state after successful execution
  • Error situations: errors relevant to the problem domain
  • System state on the occurrence of an error
  • Actors that communicate with the use case
  • Trigger: events which initiate / start the use case
  • Standard process: individual steps to be taken
  • Alternative processes: deviations from the standard process