Overview

An Interaction Overview diagram is a type of Interaction diagram, which falls under the behavioral diagramming family. An Interaction Overview diagram focuses on the flow of control between interactions. It is based on the Activity diagram notation. Interactions in the Interaction Overview diagram are represented using the Interaction Use element. All elements in the diagram, except for the Interaction Use, are the same as in the Activity diagram.

Purpose

An Interaction Overview diagram is intended to be used to model the flow of logic in a series of interactions. To put it another way, the Interaction Overview diagram uses blocks of interactions and individual interactions instead of modeling a series of discrete behaviors (activities). 

Usage

Interaction Overview diagrams visualize a sequence of activities just like Activity diagrams do; however, they picture each individual entry as a frame which can contain a nested interaction diagram. 

Summary

Interaction Overview diagrams are valuable because they:

  • provide a high-level view of the logical progression through a set of interactions
  • keep the focus on the "big picture" and away from implementation details
  • encourage the reuse of interactions 

Example of an Interaction Overview diagram

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