Unified Modeling Language

Prepared by: Charles Ethan Chua

What is it?
• The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a graphical language for
visualizing, specifying, constructing, and documenting the
artifacts of a software-intensive system.
• UML (Unified Modeling Language) is a visual way to design and
explain how a software system works. Think of it like a blueprint
for building software — just like how architects use blueprints to
plan buildings.
Additionally
• With UML, you can show:
• Concepts like business processes and how the system should behave.
• Technical details like the code structure, database design, and reusable
parts of the software.
• It helps everyone involved — developers, designers, and business
teams — understand the system clearly before building it.
Common UML Diagrams
• Use Case Diagram
• Activity Diagram
• Sequence Diagram
• Class Diagram
• Deployment Diagram
Use Case Diagrams
What are Actors?
• An actor represents a role of a user that interacts with the system
that you are modeling.
• The user can be a person, an organization, a machine, or another
external system.
What are Use Cases?
• Use cases specify the expected behavior (what), and not the exact
method of making it happen (how).
• A use case diagram is usually simple. It does not show the detail
of the use cases:
• It only summarizes some of the relationships between use cases, actors,
and systems.
• It does not show the order in which steps are performed to achieve the
goals of each use case.
Additionally
• In models that depict businesses, use cases represent the
processes and activities of the business. In models that depict
software systems, use cases represent the capabilities of the
software.
• Each use case must have a unique name that describes the action
that the system performs.
• Use case names are often short phrases that start with a verb,
such as Place Order Online.
Communication
Line/Interaction/Relationship
• The participation of an actor in a use case is shown by connecting
an actor to a use case by a solid link.
• Actors may be connected to use cases by associations, indicating
that the actor and the use case communicate with one another
using messages.
Extend and Include
• Extend
• The extend relationship extends the base use case and adds more
functionality to the system. It is optional but meaningful and
independent. It must not rely on the behavior of the extending use case.
• Include
• The base use case will be incomplete without the included use case. It is
mandatory and not optional.
Activity Diagram
What is it?
• Provides a view of the behavior of a system by describing the
sequence of actions in a process.
• An activity diagram is essentially an advanced version of a
flowchart that models the flow from one activity to another
activity.
An Activity Diagram
Notations
• Activity – Group of actions that can be broken down
Notations
• Action – a task to be performed

• Control Flows - Show the flow of an object from one activity (or
action) to another activity (or action).
Notations
• Initial Node / Start

• Final Node / End

Notations
• Conditional/Decision – Indicates that an action can take two or
different paths
Notations
• Fork - indicates that two or more steps in the workflow may be
completed in parallel.
Notations
• Join - Bring back together a set of parallel or concurrent flows of
activities (or actions).
Notations
• Swimlanes/Partitions - A way
to group activities performed
by the same actor on an
activity diagram or to group
activities in a single thread
Another Activity
Diagram
An Activity Diagram
Class Diagram
Class Diagrams
• Class diagrams provide a high-level overview of a system’s
design, helping to communicate and document the structure of
the software.
• In these diagrams, classes are depicted as boxes, each containing
three compartments for the class name, attributes, and methods.
Lines connecting classes illustrate associations, showing
relationships such as one-to-one or one-to-many.
Structure of a Class
Diagram
Class Name – Name of the
Class
Attributes – Characteristics
of a Class
Operations/Methods – What
the Class can do
Signatures – Data type and
parameters of a class
Attribute Notations
Public (+): Any object can
access and modify this
attribute.
Protected (#): Only the class
itself and its subclasses can
access and modify this
attribute.
Private (-): Only the class
itself can access and modify
this attribute.
Perspectives of a
Class Diagram
A diagram can be
interpreted from various
perspectives:
• Conceptual: represents the
concepts in the domain
• Specification: focus is on the
interfaces of Abstract Data
Type (ADTs) in the software
• Implementation: describes
how classes will implement
their interfaces
Relationships in Class Diagrams
Inheritance
• Represents an "is-a"
relationship.
• An abstract class name is
shown in italics.
A subclass is a type of the
superclass, inheriting all its
attributes and methods, and can
add new ones specific to itself.
Cardinality and
Multiplicity
Refers to the relationship
between two classes, specifying
how many instances of one class
can be linked to how many
instances of another class

• One-to-one: A person can have only

one passport, and a passport belongs
to only one person.
• One-to-many: A customer can place
multiple orders, but each order belongs
to only one customer.
• Many-to-many: A student can enroll in
multiple courses, and a course can
have many students.
Example
Another example
Sequence Diagram
What are Sequence Diagrams?
• A sequence diagram shows how different parts of a system talk to
each other over time
• It focuses on the order of the steps — like who does an action,
who receives it, and what happens next
• Think of it as a conversation timeline for a system, this also helps
to see the flow of actions or processes
An Example
Actors/External
Actors
An actor in a UML diagram
represents a type of role
where it interacts with the
system and its objects.
An actor is always outside the
scope of the system
They can be:
A person (Customers),
An external system (APIs or
Payment Gateways)
A device (Printer, sensors)
Lifelines
A lifeline in a sequence diagram
shows a specific part of the
system taking part in the
interaction
Lifelines
Each lifeline represents one
participant and shows what they
do over time. It’s drawn at the top
of the diagram, and messages are
sent between lifelines
A lifeline always portrays an
object internal to the system
whereas actors are used to depict
objects external to the system
Messages
Communication between objects
is depicted using messages. The
messages appear in a sequential
order on the lifeline.
• We represent messages using
arrows.
• Lifelines and messages form
the core of a sequence
diagram.
Synchronous
Messages
A synchronous message waits for
a reply before the interaction can
move forward
The sender waits until the
receiver has completed the
processing of the message
We use a solid arrowhead to
represent a synchronous
message.
Asynchronous
Messages
An asynchronous message does
not wait for a reply from the
receiver.
The interaction moves forward
irrespective of the receiver
processing the previous message
or not.
We use a lined arrowhead to
represent an asynchronous
message.
Guards
They are used when we need to
restrict the flow of messages on
the pretext of a condition being
met
Mainly used for conditions
Alt Fragment
The alt notation in a sequence
diagram is like an if-else
statement in programming.
It shows a decision with two or
more possible paths, but only one
path happens based on a
condition.
Alt Fragment
The alt section of this diagram
means that the user can
decide/choose their payment
method (Credit Card or through
Paypal)
Each option proceeds on their
respective process. The system
then process their mode of
payment
Loop fragment
A loop fragment in a sequence
diagram shows something that
happens over and over
It’s used when an action repeats
multiple times until a condition is
met.
Loop fragment
In the example given, the loop
fragment in the example means
that whenever a cashier enters an
item the system retrieves its
description and price.
Once the cashier is finished
entering items the condition is
met and the loop is finished, it will
then proceed with the following
processes (End sale and etc.)
Deployment Diagram
Deployment Diagram
• A deployment diagram shows how a system’s software runs on
hardware — it’s like a map of the system’s physical setup.
Nodes
Nodes are hardware like servers,
personal computers, or any other
physical devices
Nodes can be connected by
communication paths to describe
network structures.
Nodes can contain other nodes,
called nested nodes, and they can
also have artifacts deployed on
them.
Artifacts
Artifacts represent physical
implementation units, such as
executable files, libraries,
software components,
documents, and databases.
Artifacts represent physical
implementation units, such as
executable files, libraries,
software components,
documents, and databases.
Communication
To interpret communications, we use solid
lines show how different parts of the
system exchange information
Like how devices, servers, and software
components talk to each other.
Interpreting the
example
Nodes/Hardware: Web Server, DB
Server, UserClient and Browser
Artifacts/Software: Website,
MySQL Database, HTML5
Communication Protocols used:
https:80
Interpreting the
example
How they interact with one
another:
The user’s browser nodes sends a
request to the web server node
using the https protocol. Then the
web server node retrieves data
from the database server node
and its respective artifact (MySQL
DB). After data retrieval the
response is sent back (Website) to
the user’s browser.