Towards implementing a framework for modeling software requirements in magicdraw UML

Abstract

UML is considered to be de facto standard for software modeling. However, in software requirements analysis it is quite common to apply only use case and activity diagrams and focus on the textual requirements specification with some non-standard graphical illustrations. In this paper we present a framework for modeling software requirements consistently using multiple UML diagrams. We illustrate the application of this framework with the examples of different requirements artifacts based on a case study system MagicTest. We discuss how such a framework could be implemented in one of the most popular UML tools, MagicDraw UML, by using its powerful features for customizing the modeling environment, defining methodology wizards, specifying validation rules, analyzing model element relationships, and generating documentation based on user-defined templates. We recognize that our approach provides the foundation, which could and should be refined and extended for special cases of requirements analysis. Our work should be considered as a starting point for practitioners trying to adopt UML for requirements analysis and for scientists working on creating more detailed requirements analysis methods based on UML.