User Manual Vs Use Case

[sc_kew]

Hey, can everyone tell me what's the difference between User Manual and Use Case? I found out both of documentation are telling users what to do on the system.

Thanks!

[jeshaw2]

Use Cases have a wider audience than User Manuals.  The actors in some Use Cases are other automated systems.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Hey, can everyone tell me what's the difference between User Manual and Use Case? I found out both of documentation are telling users what to do on the system.

Thanks!

Use Cases (when stored in a model like EA) and when created with a formalism are more amenable to automated processing than User Manuals...

I have difficulty reading some user manuals, I can't expect my automatic emitter to be better at it...

Paolo

[thomaskilian]

I think that User Manual guide users in working with the system. Use Cases tell the system what the user expects it to do.

[sargasso]

User manuals tend to be a good source of use cases.  Unfortunately, IMO usually only up to about 60% of the use cases.  I have never seen a user manual (or set of) that cover all the users let alone all the actors.

bruce

[Kevin Brennan]

Thomas is right. Use cases are a requirements specification technique that describe what a user needs the system to do, where user manuals are a training technique that teaches a actual user how to get the system to do something. A use case should generally avoid discussing specific UI elements, whereas a user manual is pretty much worthless if it doesn't specifically discuss the UI.