Meeting 3:Use case senarios, UML, Del.icio.us and flickr

After some discussion of the culture of wikis and my not really using this (see posting for assignment 2) - we tried to get on track with the interactive essay focus (sketched in assignment 1.1). We discussed different methodologies for software development and the ways in which 'use case senarios inform the design process. Use case scenarios can be narrative or visual scenarios that anticipate putting software in a specific context of specific activity (community - who uses them and how. So for example, would need to anticipate the different contexts of use of an application - like viewing, joint editing, follow up commetns etc. All of this reminds me of rhetorical theory of communication.

Then Yishay introduced me to another new language UML - Unified Modelling Language - which is a common 'tool' in this design process. It is not a programing language but rather it is a graphic language with a strict syntax and formal grammar for the design of programs. It can not be 'executed' - it has not 'functionality' but it is a formal way of expressing design ideas betwen designers and others - including programmers.

Use case senario diagrams that are realised in UML are like 'one level above programming'. I think this might kind of relate to halliday - social semiotic- notion of 'higher order semiotic' - a kind of social meaning (function) to be realised. There are now UML editions that are designed to be read by a computer program so taht they generate a skeleton of the code which ties them into the development process in a particular way. The UML diagram produced from the use case senario can be read by a computer and using 'reverse enginering' it can generate a UML diagram which can be used to 'rethink' the design and then returned to code.

Talked about how i could put any visual use case scenarios - diagrams etc - on the blog. Yishay suggested might be best to scan any drawings and then up load them onto flickr and link to blog. So i registered for flickr and will have a play with that.

Yishay showed me about Del.icio.us - i registered for it and will play around with it - not quite sure how to make use of it as a resource...

Assignment 3

Have a look at Del.icio.us and try and understand it - how i could use it in my work and in this blog.

Write down several use case senarios of my interactive visual essay - so my previous descriptions of the essay (assignment 1 and 1.1) are structural - here the narrative descriptions are about contexts of use.

Look up the links that Yishay has sent re UML and find out a bit more about it - try and use UML to make a diagram of my use case scenario.

Scan this diagram - Upload it onto flickr and link to my blog.