When to Omit Interactions from Sequence Diagrams
publish date: 2026/06/08 06:26:27.426419 UTC
True or False: When developing system models early in the development process to support requirements engineering and high-level design, you must include every possible interaction in your sequence diagrams — even those that depend on implementation decisions not yet made.
Correct Answer
Explanation
Unless you are using sequence diagrams for code generation or detailed documentation, you do not have to include every interaction. When developing models early to support requirements engineering and high-level design, there will be many interactions that depend on implementation decisions. For example, how to get the user identifier to check authorization is an implementation detail that can be left out of an early-stage sequence diagram.
Reference
Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 9th edition
