Best Practices

Think about objects and links instead of classes and association.

It is easier to understand concrete examples than abstract concepts.

Use an adapted subset of the UML syntax, some concepts are not meant to be used in domain analysis: visibility, active classes, etc.

Use specializations to avoid duplicate attributes and associations.

Name association roles accordingly and use precise cardinalities.

Avoid the complexity of ternary and quaternary associations.

Be attentive to class, attribute, and role names.

Describe Actions using:

Describe Use Cases using Activity Diagrams.

Describe different states of a conceptual class using State Machines.

Do not try to exploit all UML modeling possibilities.

Sequence diagrams (scenarios) are always attached to Use Cases.

Each Use Case should be described by a main and several alternative or exception scenarios.

When an object receives a message, its class must defined the operation corresponding to that message.

State machines are always attached to Classes. Attributes and Operations used by states and transitions must be defined in the corresponding Class.

Each transition should be described by a scenario.