[Sigia-l] sitepath diagramming - comparing biased views?

[prady]

One the following note from Christina Wodtke -

>I doubt anyone will show hands to say they've done it-- if they have
they've
>probably gotten some use case training at some point of their life and
>adapted it also

I have usefull stuff to add -

The role of use cases has proved very usefull in our context for designing
User Interface for browser based SCM solution. This is specially usefull to
understand the requirement and test the expectations of the Customer. I am
inspired by the Use Case theory of 'Larry L. Constantine, Lucy Lockwood' and
there's a good paper by them called - 'Structure and Style in Use Cases for
User Interface Design'. Find it at -
http://www.foruse.com/articles/structurestyle2.htm

Having said that, I am also aware that there is a big debate out there on
various 'use case' theories. I have read few and disaggree with the
'Rational Rose' approach. Although I don't want to start the fire, but I
wish to comment that 'Rational Rose's Unified Process theory limits the
scope of UCD by giving too much emphasis on the inner system design and
gives less benefit to those who advocate 'Users'. For this reason alone I
respect the work of  'Larry L. Constantine, Lucy Lockwood'.

The role of this use case theory may not fit in best for most of the IAs
working on the 'Content based projects' such as designing websites, intranet
or portals. But it is highly usefull for the information sytems such as ours
where UI is catered to the user for 'analysis', 'designing supply networks',
'manipulate data and perform data management', inform through
Aletrs/messages' about the system and networks, etc. Besides, use case
theory is also usefull in our context because there is less scope of
visiting the user/customer primises to perform 'Contextual Analysis'. In
other words Use Cases provides us means to validate lot of assumptions, SRD
makes to designing the system.

At the end I would also say, if you have ever suffered (or suffering) by the
politics of Requirements Vs. Technical Design (or Product Management Vs
Engineering), use cases are the best to make things black and white during
the Requirement or Task analysis Phase. Read the article 'Structure and
Style in Use Cases for User Interface Design' at
http://www.foruse.com/articles/structurestyle2.htm before taking a shot at
my comments.

Please elaborate on your questions, if you have any.

Pradyot Rai

----- Original Message -----
From: "christina wodtke" <cwodtke at eleganthack.com>
To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] sitepath diagramming - comparing biased views?


> a side note..
>
> > Last question: can we have a show of hands if you've used this
technique?
>
>
> I learned the rudiments of this technique from a architect-- a system
> architect. She did this collaboratively with the project team as a way to
> quickly flesh out the information she needed to design use cases, use case
> maps, and other Rational processes. I took this technique and kept using
it,
> refining over time... it was always useful when, as a consultant, I had to
> quickly understand the system and the businesses plan for it, or when
> working on a problem internally (in my mind) to help me make sure I was
> getting all the elements of the problem considered, and see if their were
> reusable interactive elements. If you are familiar with Rational
processes,
> or OO, you know a key is abstracting out repeated items and behaviors to
> create reusable code.
>
> I doubt anyone will show hands to say they've done it-- if they have
they've
> probably gotten some use case training at some point of their life and
> adapted it also (and even then, maybe not. I've met other folks who know
use
> cases methodology and don't do them). Because this technique had become to
> integral to my work, and had proved so useful over the years, I wanted to
> include it in the books because I thought there ought to one or two things
> in the book new to the reader, even if the reader was on this list. I
think
> I have a few others. ;-)
>
> As for use, you can use it before scenarios to figure out what scenarios
to
> write (because you'll notice which paths are often tread, and thus are
key)
> but to be quite honest, I often use this technique when there is no time
to
> do personas, scenarios and full task analysis. It's a fast way to flesh
out
> an interactive system. I like it because it works.
>
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