Use Cases in Practice:: A Study in the Norwegian Software Industry

Abstract

This Master's thesis investigates how project teams apply Use Cases and what problems they encounter with the employment of Use Cases by interviewing and surveying a number of Norwegian software companies. The thesis examines what developers and clients think is difficult and easy about Use Cases, how well the technique worked in a specific project, and how well the technique works in discussions with clients. A list of improvement suggestions for the Use Case technique is made based on the interviews, survey and literature study. The key findings in this thesis are summarized as eight improvement suggestions. The three most important are: (1) that Use Cases should be supplied with user interface prototypes when used in discussions with clients, (2) that companies should make use of a tool that makes it easier to get the overview of related Use Cases, and (3) that one should avoid to write details about the user interface in Use Cases. Other findings are that Use Cases are most commonly used for requirements specification, estimation, programming and constructing test cases, and that it is difficult to find the right level of detail when writing Use Cases.