Value-Driven use Cases Triage for Embedded Systems: A Case Study of Cellular Phone

Abstract

A well-defined and prioritized set of use cases enables the enhancement of an entire system by focusing on more important use cases identified in the previous iteration. These use cases are given more opportunities to be refined and tested. Until now, use case prioritization has been done from a user perspective, and through balanced measurement of actors/objects usage. Lack of cost consideration for realization, however, renders it ineffective for economic purposes. Hence, this study incorporates the 'value' concept, based on cost benefit analysis, in use case prioritization for embedded systems. The use case satisfaction level is used as the surrogate for 'benefit', and the complexity of implementation for 'cost'. Based on the value, use cases are prioritized. As a proof-of-concept, we apply our value-based prioritization method to the development of a camera system in a cellular phone.