A Concept of UC Workbench Tool
UC Workbench is a tool that supports usage of use cases in software projects.
It helps with requirements elicitation and analysis, by generating system mockups
and Software Requirements Specifications (SRS) from use cases. These artifacts enhances communication between customer and analyst.
The tool is designed to enable iterative development of use cases according to BreadthBeforeDepth and SpiralDevelopment
patterns ([1]): starting with definition of actors and their goals, then main success scenarios
and finally extension-handling behaviour.
UC Workbench influences work of :
- Analyst - prepares requirements (use cases with application screen sketches) using UC Editor, generates mockup and SRS.
- Readers (Customer, Developers) - checks the requirements thoroughly and provides feedback to analyst,
he can stimulate his imagination by watching mockup (see [2], [3]), develop the system specified by requirements
Generation of Mockup
Use cases and application screens sketches are processed by Artifacts Generator, which is able to generate arbitrary contents based
on templates. There are predefined templates for mockup and SRS artifacts.
Use Cases + Screens Design = Mockup Definition
UC Workbench understands the structure of each use case and is able to generate mockup demonstrating how the future system will look like.
The steps of each use case defines the flow of control in the future system and application screen sketches helps to imagine how the
system will work.
Visual Tour
UC Editor
UC Editor consists of following components:
- UC Navigator - (visible on the left) shows all requirements artifacts available in UC Workbench Project
- Artifacts Editors - (visible in the middle) allow to work on artifacts
- Outline - (visible on the right) shows the summary of the artifact being currently edited
- Screen Selector - (visible on the bottom) allows to assign particular application screen sketches to use-case steps
Artifacts Editors are designed to make analyst's work as efficient as it is possible. They are able to complete the text in many places:
Many defects are detected on the fly:
They are propagated to the top level to be clearly visible to the analyst:
Artifacts Generator
Changes to the artifacts are automatically detected during work. Each time a change happen, the derived artifacts are
immediately updated:
There are two predefined templates for processing requirements:
System Mockup

Software Requirements Specification
Based on recommendations of ISO'830 Standard:

References
- [1] Adolph S., Bramble P., Cockburn A., Pols A.: Patterns for Effective Use Cases. Addison-Wesley (2002)
- [2] Bittner K., Spence I.: Use Case Modeling. Addison-Wesley (2002)
- [3] Leffingwell D., Widrig D.: Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach. Second edn. Addison-Wesley (2003)