Transforming Use Cases to a More Formal Representation

Use case modeling is a popular technique to elicit and model functional requirements of a software development project. In a use case driven development methodology, use cases are used as a basis to guide the development of UML design models. This article provides a model transformation approach to transform use cases descriptions written in a nearly unstructured form to a more formal representation.

A more formal representation, which is machine-readable, can be used to systematically generate other UML design models, in particular UML activity diagrams. The main advantage of using this model transformation approach is to avoid potential errors introduced by modelers if they were to develop the UML design models while depending solely on their skill and experience. The proposed model transformation approach is applied to a library system to demonstrate its applicability and to validate its correctness and effectiveness.