What is a Use case?

Use Cases are used to capture the requirements of a system and ensure that all necessary functionality is included. They describe the interactions between a user (called an “actor”) and the system in order to achieve a specific goal.

Use case should identify a few key components. The most important ones include:

• Actor: anything exhibiting behavior that interacts with a system (For an e-commerce website an actor can be a buyer, Distributors or sellers, etc.)

• System: The product or service with defined functionality.

• Goal: the purpose or objective users reach with a system’s features.

• Stakeholder(s): someone with a stake or interest in a system’s performance. Actors are always stakeholders, but many stakeholders are not actors.

• Primary actor: the actor who initiates a system’s function to reach a goal.

• Preconditions: underlying factors required for the use case to happen.

Imagine building a website for an e-commerce website. Some of the use case might include the following :

 • New user Registration.

• Ordering a product to submitting their payment information .

• Customer searching for a specific name brand item not found in the area or chosen establishment.