UML for e-business: new use for use cases

One of the major challenges facing Web site designers today is the planning of large Web applications such as e-commerce sites. These online applications must be thoroughly investigated and planned before any development begins. Not only are they immense projects, often costing millions of dollars, but they are usually also architecturally challenging, having to be linked into existing business processes and database legacy systems. More and more Web designers have been utilizing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to model the entire system before development begins. UML was originally developed for the design and documentation of large software products. UML is an object-based methodology to assist in the mapping of design specifications from functional requirements. It breaks the architecture of any software system into modules, and each module is made up of one or more "Use Cases." Siemens recently used this methodology to design a new e-commerce site and we were pleased with how well UML works within the realm of Internet site design and the integration of business systems.