Automated Generation of Use Case Diagrams from Problem Frames Using Formal Concept Analysis

Problem-oriented approaches to software engineering are based on the principle that designing effective solutions requires a detailed understanding of the problem. These approaches could provide an effective support closing the gap between the solution and problem domains, and hence, reducing the risk of failure in software projects. Problem Frames (PF) is an effective problem-oriented approach for classifying, analyzing and structuring software development problems during the requirement phase. However, PF still lacks techniques and tools that support their use and integration in the mainstream software engineering lifecycles. Accordingly, in this paper, we present an approach to transform Problem Frames to the widely-used UML Use Case diagrams. The transformation exploits the notion of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA), a mathematical approach for clustering and categorization. FCA enables the formalization of the transformation process, and thus, allows for automation. The approach is demonstrated by the means of a case study.