Use Cases - Help

Question

I am new to writing use cases.I heard that Use cases are non-technical expressions .

I have the following task for which i have to write Use case.
(I reduced the requirement for your understanding)

Registered Customer of ABC company logged in to the system with credentials to retrieve the complete Address of particular service provider.He searches the service provider on TextBox.The System communcates with database and displays the result on monitor.

I am technical guy,
I have to write use case to explain the behavior of the system to the client.

I have written Use case as follows :

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Use case Name: Address Locating System
Primary Actor: Customer
Stakeholder: ABC Company
Precondition: Customer Successfully Logged in to the system

Success Scenarios:

1. Customer Enter the search term in the box provided.
2. System searches the search terms for matches.
3. System Supplies the address to the Customer.

Extension Point: Client is informed when no successful match
Post condition: None

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Questions.

1. Is the Use Case described above, correct?
2. Do really tech people need to write Use cases?

Answer 1

Whenever I need to write a Use Case, I pick up my copy of UML Distilled and use its suggested format. There are variations in the formats, so this isn't the only way. In any case it's a good reference to have on your desk. You might also check out Writing Effective Use Cases; I haven't read that one, though.

If you'd like a free example, see:

http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UseCasesMartinFowlerSimpleTextExample

I might avoid the "in the box provided" bit - that's an implementation detail that might change. I might also change 2 to just "System searches for matches."

And yes, technical people do need to write Use Cases readable by non-technical domain experts.

Answer 2

I would say that this is your use case:

Registered Customer of ABC company logged in to the system with credentials to retrieve the complete Address of particular service provider.He searches the service provider on TextBox.The System communcates with database and displays the result on monitor.

There is no need to do all the formatting, special headings, numbering etc. Give it a title and you are done. For presentation to a client, I'd use use case diagrams, and not show even this amount of detail unless asked.