Interaction diagrams

Interaction diagrams visually document how system components interact with each other.

In the following interaction diagram, you can see that the flow starts with a decision on whether the customer is a new, or already existing, customer. In both cases, the interaction between the Customer object and Customer Database object is documented:

An interaction diagram for a coffee shop order

Interaction UML diagrams are robust and come in several different types. The interaction UML diagram types are listed here and will be covered in the subsequent sections:

  • Sequence diagram
  • Communication diagram
  • Timing diagram