Chapter 4

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 1

Domain Classes
Chapter 4

Systems Analysis and Design

in a Changing World 6th Ed

Satzinger, Jackson & Burd

Chapter 4 Outline
 “Things” in the Problem Domain
 Data entities
 Domain classes
 The Domain Model Class Diagram
 The Entity-Relationship Diagram

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 3

Learning Objectives
 Explain how the concept of “things” in the
problem domain also define requirements
 Identify and analyze data entities and domain
classes needed in the system
 Read, interpret, and create an entity-relationship
diagram
 Read, interpret, and create a domain model
class diagram
 Understand the domain model class diagram for
the RMO Consolidated Sales and Marketing
System
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Overview
 Chapter 3 provided an overview of identifying
use cases to define functional requirements
 This chapter focuses on another key concepts
for defining requirements— data entities or
domain classes
 In the RMO Tradeshow System from Chapter 1,
some domain classes are Supplier, Product, and
Contact
 In this chapter’s opening case Waiters on Call,
examples of domain classes are Restaurants,
Menu items, Customers, Orders, Drivers,
Addresses, Routes, and Payments
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 5
Things in the Problem Domain
 Problem domain—the specific area (or domain)
of the users’ business need that is within the
scope of the new system.
 “Things” are those items users work with when
accomplishing tasks that need to be
remembered
 Examples of “Things” are products, sales,
shippers, customers, invoices, payments, etc.
 These “Things” are modeled as domain classes
or data entities
 In this course, we will call them domain classes.
In database class you call them data entities
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 6
Things in the Problem Domain
Two Techniques for Identifying them
 Brainstorming Technique
 Use a checklist of all of the usual types of things
typically found and brainstorm to identify domain
classes of each type
 Noun Technique
 Identify all of the nouns that come up when the
system is described and determine if each is a
domain class, an attribute, or not something we
need to remember

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Brainstorming Technique
 Are there any tangible things? Are there any
organizational units? Sites/locations? Are there
incidents or events that need to be recorded?

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Brainstorming Technique:
Steps
1. Identify a user and a set of use cases
2. Brainstorm with the user to identify things involved
when carrying out the use case—that is, things about
which information should be captured by the system.
3. Use the types of things (categories) to systematically
ask questions about potential things, such as the
following: Are there any tangible things you store
information about? Are there any locations involved?
Are there roles played by people that you need to
remember?
4. Continue to work with all types of users and
stakeholders to expand the brainstorming list
5. Merge the results, eliminate any duplicates, and
compile an initial list

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The Noun Technique
 A technique to identify problem domain classes
(things) by finding, classifying, and refining a
list of nouns that come up in in discussions or
documents
 Popular technique. Systematic.
 Does end up with long lists and many nouns
that are not things that need to be stored by
the system
 Difficulty identifying synonyms and things that
are really attributes
 Good place to start when there are no users
available to help brainstorm
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 10
Partial List
of Nouns
for RMO

With notes on
whether to
include as
domain class

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The Noun Technique:
Steps
1. Using the use cases, actors, and other information
about the system— including inputs and outputs—
identify all nouns.
 For the RMO CSMS, the nouns might include customer, product item,
sale, confirmation, transaction, shipping, bank, change request,
summary report, management, transaction report, accounting, back
order, back order notification, return, return confirmation…

2. Using other information from existing systems, current

procedures, and current reports or forms, add items or
categories of information needed.
 For the RMO CSMS, these might include price, size, color, style,
season, inventory quantity, payment method, and shipping address.

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The Noun Technique:
Steps (continued)
3. As this list of nouns builds, refine it. Ask these
questions about each noun to help you decide whether
you should include it:
 Is it a unique thing the system needs to know about?
 Is it inside the scope of the system I am working on?
 Does the system need to remember more than one of these items?
Ask these questions to decide to exclude it:
 Is it really a synonym for some other thing I have identified?
 Is it really just an output of the system produced from other
information I have identified?
 Is it really just an input that results in recording some other information
I have identified?
Ask these questions to research it:
 Is it likely to be a specific piece of information (attribute) about some
other thing I have identified?
 Is it something I might need if assumptions change?

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The Noun Technique:
Steps (continued)
4. Create a master list of all nouns identified and then
note whether each one should be included, excluded,
or researched further.

5. Review the list with users, stakeholders, and team

members and then define the list of things in the
problem domain.

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Details about Domain Classes
 Attribute— describes one piece of information
about each instance of the class
 Customer has first name, last name, phone number
 Identifier or key
 One attribute uniquely identifies an instance of the
class. Required for data entities, optional for domain
classes. Customer ID identifies a customer
 Compound attribute
 Two or more attributes combined into one structure
to simplify the model. (E.g., address rather than
including number, street, city, state, zip separately).
Sometimes an identifier or key is a compound
attribute.

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Attributes and Values
 Class is a type of thing. Object is a specific instance of the class.
Each instance has its own values for an attribute

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Associations Among Things
 Association— a naturally occurring relationship
between classes (UML term)

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Just to Clarify…
 Called association on class diagram in UML
 Multiplicity is term for the number of associations between
classes: 1 to 1 or 1 to many
 We are emphasizing UML in this text
 Called relationship on ERD in database class
 Cardinality is term for number of relationships in entity
relationship diagrams: 1 to 1 or 1 to many
 Associations and Relationships apply in two directions
 Read them separately each way
 A customer places an order
 An order is placed by a customer

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Minimum and Maximum Multiplicity
 Associations have minimum and maximum constraints
 minimum is zero, the association is optional
 If minimum is at least one, the association is mandatory

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Types of Associations
 Binary Association
 Associations between exactly two different classes
 Course Section includes Students

 Members join Club

 Unary Association (recursive)

 Associations between two instances of the same class
 Person married to person

 Part is made using parts

 Ternary Association (three)

 N-ary Association (between n)

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Semantic Net
Shows instances and
how they are linked

Example shows
instances of three
classes

Quick quiz:

How many associations are

there?

What are the minimum and

maximum multiplicities in
each direction?

What type of associations

are they?

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The Domain Model Class
Diagram
 Class
 A category of classification used to describe a collection
of objects
 Domain Class
 Classes that describe objects in the problem domain
 Class Diagram
 A UML diagram that shows classes with attributes and
associations (plus methods if it models software classes)
 Domain Model Class Diagram
 A class diagram that only includes classes from the
problem domain, not software classes so no methods
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Domain Class Notation
 Domain class has no methods
 Class name is always capitalized
 Attribute names are not capitalized and use camelback
notation (words run together and second word is
capitalized)

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A Simple Domain Model Class
Diagram

 Note: This diagram matches the semantic net shown previously

 A customer places zero or more orders
 An order is placed by exactly one customer
 An order consists of one or more order items
 An order item is part of exactly one order
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 24
UML Notation for Multiplicity

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 25

Domain Model Class Diagram
for a bank with many branches

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 Domain Model Class Diagram
for course enrollment at a university

 Where is each student’s grade remembered in this model?

 Each section has many grades and each grade is association with a student
 Each student has many grades and each grade is association with a section
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 27
 Refined Course Enrollment Model
with an Association Class CourseEnrollment
 Association class— an association that is treated as a class in a
many to many association because it has attributes that need to
be remembered, such as grade

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 28

More Complex Issues about Classes:
Generalization/Specialization Relationships

 Generalization/Specialization
 A hierarchical relationship where subordinate classes are
special types of the superior classes. Often called an
Inheritance Hierarchy
 Superclass
 the superior or more general class in a
generalization/specialization hierarchy
 Subclass
 the subordinate or more specialized class in a
generalization/specialization hierarchy
 Inheritance
 the concept that subclasses classes inherit characteristics of
the more general superclass
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 29
Generalization/Specialization
Inheritance

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Generalization/Specialization
Inheritance for RMO Three Types of Sales

 Abstract class— a class that allow subclasses to inherit

characteristics but never gets instantiated. In Italics (Sale above)
 Concrete class— a class that can have instances
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 31
 Generalization/Specialization
Inheritance for the Bank with Special Types of Accounts

 A SavingsAccount
has 4 attributes
 A CheckingAccount
Has 5 attributes
 Note: the subclasses
inherit the
associations, too

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More Complex Issues about Classes:
Whole Part Relationships
 Whole-part relationship— a relationship between
classes where one class is part of or a component
portion of another class
 Aggregation— a whole part relationship where the
component part exists separately and can be removed
and replaced (UML diamond symbol, next slide)
 Computer has disk storage devices
 Car has wheels
 Composition— a whole part relationship where the
parts can no longer be removed (filled in diamond
symbol)
 Hand has fingers
 Chip has circuits
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 Whole Part Relationships
Computer and its Parts

 Note: this is
composition, with
diamond symbol.
 Whole part can
have multiplicity
symbols, too (not
shown)

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More on UML Relationships
 There are actually three types of relationships in
class diagrams
 Association Relationships
 These are associations discussed previously, just like
ERD relationships
 Whole Part Relationships
 One class is a component or part of another class

 Generalizations/Specialization Relationships
 Inheritance

 So, try not to confuse relationship with association

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RMO CSMS Project
Domain Model Class Diagrams
 There are several ways to create the domain
model class diagram for a project
 RMO CSMS has 27 domain classes overall
 Can create one domain model class diagram per
subsystem for those working on a subsystem
 Can create one overall domain model class
diagram to provide an overview of the whole
system
 Usually in early iterations, an initial draft of the
domain model class diagram is completed to guide
development and kept up to date
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 36
RMO CSMS Project
Domain Model Class Diagrams
 There are several ways to create the domain
model class diagram for a project
 RMO CSMS has 27 domain classes overall
 Can create one domain model class diagram per
subsystem for those working on a subsystem
 Can create one overall domain model class
diagram to provide an overview of the whole
system
 Usually in early iterations, an initial draft of the
domain model class diagram is completed to guide
development and kept up to date
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 37
RMO CSMS
Project
Sales Subsystem
Domain Model Class
Diagrams

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 38

RMO CSMS
Project
Customer Account
Subsystem Domain
Model Class
Diagram

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 39

RMO CSMS
Project
Complete Domain
Model Class
Diagram

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RMO CSMS Project
Domain Model Class Diagrams
 Given the complete RMO CSMS Domain Model Class
Diagram and Sales and Customer Account subsystem
examples:
 Try completing the Order Fulfilment Subsystem Domain Model
Class Diagram
 Try Completing the Marketing Subsystem Domain Model Class
Diagram
 Try Completing the Reporting Subsystem Domain Model Class
Diagram
 Review the use cases from Chapter 3 and decide what
classes and associations from the complete model are
required for each subsystem
 Classes and associations might be duplicated in more than one
subsystem model
Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 41
Entity-Relationship Diagrams
ERD
 An ERD shows basically the same information as
a domain model class diagram
 It is not a UML diagram, but it is widely used by
data analysts in database management
 There really is no standard notation, but most
developers use the entity and crows feet notation
shown in this text
 An ERD is not good for showing
generalization/specialization relationships and
whole part relationships

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Example of ERD Notation
 A simple ERD without showing attributes

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ERD Cardinality Symbols
often called the crows feet notation

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Expanded ERD with Attributes

 Note: This diagram matches the semantic net shown previously

 Also matches a domain model class diagram shown previously

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An ERD for a Bank

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Summary
 This chapter is the second of three that focuses on
modeling functional requirements as a part of systems
analysis
 “Things” in the problem domain are identified and
modeled, called domain classes or data entities
 Two techniques for identifying domain classes/data
entities are the brainstorming technique and the noun
technique
 Domain classes have attributes and associations
 Associations are naturally occurring relationships
among classes, and associations have minimum and
maximum multiplicity

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 47

Summary
 The UML class diagram notation is used to create a
domain model class diagram for a system. The domain
model classes do not have methods because they are
not yet software classes.
 There are actually three UML class diagram
relationships: association relationships,
generalization/specialization (inheritance)
relationships, and whole part relationships
 Other class diagram concepts are abstract versus
concrete classes, compound attributes, composition
and aggregation, association classes, super classes
and subclasses

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 48

Summary
 Entity-relationship diagrams (ERDs) show the same
information as a domain model class diagram
 ERDs are preferred by database analysts and are
widely used
 ERDs are not UML diagrams, and an association is
called a relationship, multiplicity is called cardinality,
and generalization/specialization (inheritance) and
whole part relationships are usually not shown

Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, 6th Edition 49