Functional View

The functional view allows you to summarise what the key functions of the system are. It also allows you to make an explicit link between the functional aspects of the system (use cases, stories, etc) and explain why they are significant to your architecture. A functional view should answer the following types of questions.

• Is it clear what the system actually does?
• Is it clear which features/functions/use cases are significant to the architecture and why?
• Is it clear who the key functional users are (roles, actors, etc) and how the system caters for their needs?
• It is clear that the above has been used to shape and define the architecture?

By all means refer to existing documentation if it's available, or simply produce a summary. The use case diagram above *summarises* the major features for a public facing website. It shows a couple of user roles (actors) and the major features (use cases). Again, the purpose of this section is to put some context around the software.