Use-case dogma requires that scenarios be written in the “essential style,” without specifying the technology or “look and feel” of the user interface. This paper challenges the above doctrine with a controlled experiment. It shows that people do not find it difficult or onerous to add screen mockups to a use case, making it into a kind of storyboard.

The experiment involves 15 undergraduate students, five graduate students, and 13 practitioners. Ricca et al. use a tool called Pencil, which is later evaluated, to draw screen shots. The users’ opinions are estimated by using standard statistical techniques. The users found the tool easy to use and thought that the screen shots aided comprehension. A companion paper [1] is quoted as showing that screen mockups help people better understand a use case.

The paper is a simple report of an empirical test of current methods. It would be stronger if example use cases were published and objective measures of understanding were defined and used. Both pundits and practitioners should read this paper and think about it. Experimenters such as Ricca et al. need to examine whether use cases augmented by mockups are easy to change when the user interface changes.