UML Weekend Crash Course™ - To Parent Directory

SESSION
18
Modeling the Dynamic View:
The Collaboration Diagram
Session Checklist
✔ Explaining the purpose of the Collaboration diagram
✔ Explaining and demonstrating the notation of the Collaboration diagram
The Collaboration diagram offers an alternative to the Sequence diagram. Instead of
modeling messages over time like the Sequence diagram, the Collaboration diagram
models the messages on top of an Object diagram. The Collaboration diagram uses this
approach in order to emphasize the effect of the object structures on the interactions.
The Collaboration Diagram
Figure 18-1 shows the same set of interactions modeled in Figure 16-1 using a Sequence
diagram. The scenario shows the customer Bill creating an order and adding items to it,
checking availability for each item as it is added. Just follow the numbered messages to
step through the scenario.
You can accomplish the same thing with both diagrams (that is, you can model the logical
steps in a process like a Use Case scenario). In the following sections, I identify the similarities
and differences between these two diagrams so that you can know how to choose
the diagram that will help you the most with a particular problem in your project.