Focused Communication: If it's not on-topic, it's just off-putting.

Every box, arrow, and bullet-point that doesn’t directly give across the information you are trying to convey is worse than useless, it directly distracts from your message.

 

When a Use Case includes User Interface details, not only does the UI description suffer from being in the wrong form, but the use case suffers from having information that distracts and obfuscates the central point of a Use Case. A Use Case is mean to encapsulate the back-and-forth of interaction between participants, trying to cram in details about how information is presented and how the user gives feedback just hides this.

 

Processes are where people always get this wrong. I was talking with a friend recently on a paper he was writing comparing three process models recently. He was trying to make a point about removing unnecessary emailing and waiting in an application process but this was hidden by the sheer volume of information on the minutiae of user interaction, and information collected that was in there as well.

 

I’m not making a case for only doing “simple” modelling or communication. I like an incredibly complex model as much as the next guy (Assuming the next guy is a border-ling OCDD, modelling obsessive). It just has to be the right sort of complexity; if reality is complex you need a complex model to explain it. Hell – sometimes it’s complex on purpose. I once did a process model that had to be printed in 4 point type to fit on one A2 page but the point of that was to get across how out-of-control complex the system was.

 

Just make it focused on what it needs to do, and be brutal about cutting out any information that isn’t immediately needed into a separate model.

 

(P.S. First test of email blog posting.)