Strengths of use cases

There are various reasons that have made use cases highly preferred for describing requirements. Chief of the reasons is the fact that they use natural language rather than any specialised language. This makes it possible for non-computer literate customers to read and understand them. The other crucial strength is that they represent system behaviour from the point of view of its users, thereby telling the users what they will get from the system. This makes it possible for users to take part in validating the behaviour expected of the system.

Generally, use cases achieve their great power primarily by simplicity and organisation: when you identity and organise use cases, a picture of what the system has to do is clearly painted.

Use case diagrams are the most commonly used form of the use case notation. Its true a picture is worthy more than a thousand words, but the use case diagram has been found to be highly wanting.