UML Full Example

A complete UML exercise

This section contains a full example of UML Modeling of a problem.

• This example was built circa 2017 in UML 2 - it may be outdated
• This example was built to teach UML - don’t do this in the cloud kids
• This example was built on purpose only with custom handcrafted tools - including the UML editor, the blog editor and the site generator, all demonstrated as built with UML to the students. You may appreciate the performance and find flaws in the result.
• This example is in French - you might want to use G**gle translate

The methodology rigorously applied

This example is part of a course I’ve been giving from 2009 to 2019. It is the b-a-ba standard CRUD example for UML Modelling : an Online Store.

1. The 1st chapter shows how to take a client-described problem a-la “I want an online store” and document the UseCases ¹
2. The 2nd chapter drills down : For each UseCase ² you have to derive a Sequence ³ - often leading to introduce more detailed/refined UseCases ⁴
3. The 3rd chapter show how Class Diagrams ⁵ should not be handled first, but should merge the system methods decided at UseCase/Sequence time ^{6 7}. A common mistake is to design the model first - as professional we’re able to do this coz we’re smart and fast :) it’s a mistake anyway because adding attributes early is literally over-constraining before having grasped the problem.
4. The 4th chapter introduces a first Activity Diagram and the problem of the State of the system ⁸
5. The 5th chapter closes and summarizes a full-featured shop management software ⁹
6. The 6th chapter is a mind-boggling puzzle for students and is often shown first : It contains the full solution, illustrated with screenshots taken from the resulting website - a real implementation ¹⁰