Structuring and refinement of class diagrams

The class diagram notation of current graphical object oriented modeling languages does not scale well with the increasing complexity of modern systems. To overcome this weakness, we propose the concept of structured interfaces, a flexible refinement relationship between class diagrams and the use of attribute, operation and relation templates to abstract from implementation details. The usefulness of the introduced concepts is illustrated by the development case study of a Web-based distributed editor. Finally, we present suggestions for the integration of the presented structuring and refinement concepts into CASE tools and documentation systems.