Galois Sub-Hierarchies Used for Use Case Modeling

Abstract. Use case diagrams are the core diagrams of the Unified Modeling Language (UML), de facto standard for software modeling. They are used to visualize relations between the users (Actors) and the functionality of the software system (Use Cases). Galois sub hierarchy (GSH) is a sub-order of the concept lattice that contains only concepts with object or attribute labels. This paper investigates the viability of GSH for visualizing the information contained within use case diagrams. While it is possible that a GSH diagram is more complex than a use case diagram for certain formal contexts a study of 87 student projects found no such case. On average, use case diagrams had 3.7 times more graphical elements than corresponding GSH diagrams, demonstrating the viability of GSH as a more compact alternative to the use case diagram.