Use Case Blueprint Diagram
Pivot from Design Thinking to Architectural Thinking by mapping user actions to architectural requirements.
The purpose of the Use-Case Blueprint Diagram is to pivot from Design Thinking to Architectural Thinking. User-centric actions are mapped to technical aspects of the architecture, such as data, systems, and technical capabilities.
The Use-Case Blueprint diagram, with its user centricity, is the bridge to creative thinking and the Design Thinking methodology. In case you want to add more user-centricity and usability focus to your architecture, you can find additional methods under the Design Thinking category.
GOAL
User-centric actions are mapped to technical aspects of the architecture.
PARTICIPANTS
Designers, Architects
TIME NEEDED
60 - 90 minutes
PHASE
Design Phase
Before You Start
- You have created the target scenario
- We recommend you create a storyboard showing how the target user interacts with the target solution. You can do this using the following method:
Materials you will need
Templates for Download
Templates for Virtual Collaboration
Steps
Creating a Use Case Blueprint Diagram includes several steps. We recommend completing them in one session.
Prepare Blueprint Diagram Frame
On a whiteboard or brown paper, create 5 horizontal swim lanes.
- The top lane is for the target scenario (see next step).
- Use a large yellow post-it, mark it “Actions”, and stick it at the beginning of the second lane.
- Take a large blue post-it, mark it “Required Data”, and put it in the third lane.
- Take a large orange post-it, mark it “Systems & Applications”, and put in lane four.
- Finally, write “Technical Capability” on a large green post-it and stick it in the last lane.
Create Storyboard
Create a storyboard showing how the target user interacts with the target solution. If you have created a Vision Storyboard already, just copy the scenes over to the first lane of your diagram. Otherwise, just place the different scenes one after the other horizontally into the first lane of your diagram.
Create one Use-Case Blueprint Diagram per user and per key objective of this user. As this can clearly be a lot of work, you might want to choose the most valuable objective and user combination and will not do all possible combinations.
Enter the Personas' Actions
In lane two, under each scene of your storyboard, mark yellow post-it notes with the actions performed by each persona in the system. Use a different color per persona or indicate the persona name for each action.
Enter Required Data
In lane three, mark blue post-its with the data that is required for the user actions in the scenes.
You will re-use information from the Use-Case Blueprint Diagram at later steps in the technical architecture domain. For example, the data identified, helps to understand the information flow, which is represented in the Solution Concept and the Solution Realization Diagram. Also, the identified data serves as input for the Conceptual Data Diagram.
Enter Systems & Applications
In lane four, use orange post-its and mark them with the systems and applications which are required for the user to perform the actions in the scenes.
The identified applications are used for the creation of Baseline Solution Architecture, the Solution Concept and Solution Realization Diagram.
The identified technical capabilities support the choice of Solution Building Blocks.
Enter Technical Capabilities
Based on your experience, add technical capabilities that are required at a specific step or action, like IoT data ingestion, a chatbot or a workflow service, for example. Write them on green post-its and put them in the last lane under the corresponding scenes.
See Example
You're done!
As a next step, you could describe the existing applications and IT components relevant for the use case and thus start working on the Baseline Solution Architecture.