UML MODELING
A use case diagram explains what the actors need and what the machine can offer to the actors. It helps a lot while designing because you can know what your machine must do to please your actors and making sure you include all the criteria that's necessary. I used this use case diagram to begin designing my ideal fine dining restaurant. First I figured out all the employees, management, and patrons that will be attending and using my restaurant. After that I then provided what each actor will contribute and need from the restaurant in order to keep everyone happy. Then I used all this information to create my use case diagram below.
USE-CASE DIAGRAM
In my use case you can see I have many different actors. We have management, chefs, cooks and bartenders. Next we have servers, cashiers, and lastly people. The overall interactions that will be happening in my fine dining restaurant in that there will be multiple managers throughout the restaurants taking care of certain spots and they will each take care of hiring, firing, and training. Next we will have a main chef who is in charge of making the meals and creating the menu. Then we have the different cooks, one who is the line cooks that does kitchen care and organizes, the short order cook who deals with the small orders, and lastly the prep cook who preps all the ingredients for the chef. We have the bartenders as well who deal with taking drink orders and socializing with people to make them feel comfortable. We also have the heart of the restaurant, the servers, who take care of orders and making people feel happy and comfortable. Next to last we have cashiers who take care of orders and the money. Lastly we have the people that we must make happy by being fast, kind, and clean.
SEQUENCE DIAGRAM
A sequence diagram explains in order how your design works. It starts out with the user then it explains what happens in the background i order for the user to get a result.​ This type of UML diagram can help a lot while making your design because you can see how your design works that the user cannot see. It makes designing way easier because now you can see it what order you must put your design in so that way it can work. I used this diagram to show how a customer places and receives their order. I first showed the user inputs then I showed what happens behind the scenes in order of how the food in prepared to how it is served. It starts once the customer says what they would like to the server then the server takes the order back to the kitchen and then the prep cooks start to prepare the ingredients for the chef. The chef then takes those ingredients and puts it together to create the meal. Then the server takes the meal back to the customer.
ORDERING & RECIEVING ORDER
Above is my sequence diagram for my fine dining service how a customer orders and receives their food. The actors that I have included is the customer, server, prep cook, and the chef. The overall chain of commands that go into making an order is that the server tells the kitchen the order then the kitchen creates that order which then the server takes the food back to the customer.
ACTIVITY DIAGRAM
An activity diagram shows all possible outcomes of your design and it will help you find a solution to all outcomes. This diagram can help with the designing process because it will help you make sure your design will work so you don't have to keep on fixing your design instead have it already useable. You can also have an idea of all the good and bad things that can happen while using your design. I used this diagram to find out where and what I am going to eat. I started out with what kind of food I would like to eat then I say yes or no then from there I find the place that offers that food and I decide yes or no to that place. After I find the place I then see what they offer and choose what I want from there. Down below you can see the diagram I used to find where and what I would like to eat.
As you can see there are many different outcomes of what to eat. The outcomes that are available is Mexican food, Chinese food, and American food. Then we have outcomes of what restaurant such as taco bell, chipotle, and panda express. Lastly we have the type of food outcomes as the following: burrito, taco, noodles, fried rice, and burger. You have different decisions to get to these outcomes. So we start off if you want Mexican food and if yes then it will ask would you like it at taco bell and if yes then it will ask if you would like a burrito and if you answer yes then that will be the end of your decisions. But thats if everything goes well if you don't want Mexican food then it will ask if you want some Chinese food and it will be the same decisions as the Mexican. It will also be like this for the American food. But its a bit different if you don't want to eat at a certain place or you don't wanna eat a certain food then it will give you a different option of food or place to eat then it will continue the same downwards.
SUMMARY
Using UML modeling is a very useful skill and after using it many times I really enjoy it. It helps me find out what I would need to include in my design, how it will work behind the screen, and all possible scenarios of what can happen to my design. I would like to include this more into decision making because it's such a helpful and useful skill. The process of creating the diagrams are not too difficult but they are very time consuming. I did gain a new perception of looking at the relationships because after seeing how much goes into these design I can see now why it is so important. This exercise does interest me in automated design because I would like to solve problems before they happen also so I can build something that would meet all the users needs. I can defiantly see myself using these skills in the future for either another design or making a decision I cannot make by myself. It is important for engineers to model the interactions with users before beginning the design of the new feature because they will know what the users need so that way the engineer can build based off the user. Also so they can make sure to include all possible solutions to all problems that the user will have.