Summary Checklist

• Documenting behavior adds semantic detail to elements and their interactions that have time-related characteristics. Behavioral models add information that reveals ordering of interactions among the elements, opportunities for concurrency, and time dependencies of interactions, such as at a specific time or after a period of time.
• Behavior documented in the element catalog of a view and in interface specifications can be used to fill in the design background section, which includes results of analysis.
• At a minimum, the stimulation of actions and transfer of information should be modelled from one element to another.
• Constraints on the interaction between elements in the form of synchronous or asynchronous communication should be documented. Document any ordering constraints on actions or interactions. Document a clock if your system depends on time.
• Most behavioral languages include representations of stimulus and activity, ordering of interactions, and structural elements with some relationships to which the behavior maps.
• Trace-oriented models consist of sequences of activities or interactions that describe the system's response to a specific stimulus when in a specific state. They document the trace of activities through a system described in terms of its structural elements and their interactions. Use cases, use case maps, sequence diagrams, collaboration diagrams, and message sequence charts are trace-oriented modeling languages.
• Static models, often state based, show the complete behavior of a structural element or set of elements. Statecharts, SDL, and Z are static behavior modeling languages.