Use Case Template - Example (Requirements Management Basics)
By Michael Shrivathsan on Oct 8, 2009 in Requirements Management Basics, Use Cases
In a recent post, I provided a definition of use case as well as an example.
The example I provided uses a very simple format. In most real-world projects, teams find it helpful to use a more fully-dressed format.
In this post, I share a template of a fully-dressed format, as well as an example using the template. You can even download the template as a Word file.
Alright, here we go…
Fully-Dressed Use Case Template
Primarily based on the couple of books I referred to earlier (“Software Requirements,” by Karl Wiegers and “Writing Effective Use Cases,” by Alistair Cockburn) - here’s a template of a fully-dressed use case:
| ID: | UC-6 |
| Title: | Register for courses |
| Description: | Student accesses the system and views the courses currently available for him to register. Then he selects the courses and registers for them. |
| Primary Actor: | Student |
| Preconditions: | Student is logged into system |
| Postconditions: | Student is registered for courses |
| Main Success Scenario: |
1. Student selects “Register New Courses” from the menu. 2. System displays list of courses available for registering. 3. Student selects one or more courses he wants to register for. 4. Student clicks “Submit” button. 5. System registers student for the selected courses and displays a confirmation message. |
| Extensions: |
2a. No courses are available for this student. 5a. Some courses could not be registered. 5b. None of the courses could be registered. |
| Frequency of Use: | A few times every quarter |
| Status: | Pending Review |
| Owner: | John Smith |
| Priority: | P3 - Medium |
Explanation of fields
Here’s what these fields are for:
- Title: Enter the goal of the use case - preferably as a short, active verb phrase.
- Description: Describe the goal and context of this use case. This is usually an expanded version of what you entered in the “Title” field.
- Primary Actor: A person or a software/hardware system that interacts with your system to achieve the goal of this use case.
- Precondition: Describe the state the system is in before the first event in this use case.
- Postcondition: Describe the state the system is in after all the events in this use case have taken place.
- Main Success Scenario: As you can see, this field contains the example from our previous post - i.e. the flow of events from preconditions to postconditions, when nothing goes wrong
- Extensions: Describe all the other scenarios for this use case - including exceptions and error cases.
- The other fields are self-explanatory.
I’ve seen templates that contain 2-3 times as many fields as our example above. But I think the template I’ve provided is a good balance - it has enough structured data, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming to complete and use for real-world projects.
There’s much to writing effective use cases using this template, especially the "Main Success Scenario" and "Extensions" - I’ll cover them in detail in future posts.
Download as Word File: Here’s the Use Case template in Microsoft Word format - download & enjoy!
Please chime in with your thoughts on this template, do you think it needs to contain more fields, or perhaps fewer fields? Click here to post your comment…
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1. Gary | Apr 22, 2010 | Reply
Concise example of a formal use case, thank you.
2. Faize | May 4, 2010 | Reply
it is very helpful for us
thank you so much
3. Niall | Feb 1, 2011 | Reply
I consider use cases essential, they provide a basis for extrapolating requirements, and subsequently for deriving a specification.
Something you don’t mention, but which I consider essential, is the need for use cases to identify threats to usage and to propose countermeasures.
If there are threats to intended i.e. safe and/or secure use, then countermeasures ought to be identified.