Beginning C# 2008 Objects: From Concept to Code

11.5. Collaboration Diagrams

The UML notation introduced a second type of interaction diagram, called a collaboration diagram, as an alternative to sequence diagrams; both types of diagram present more or less the same information, but portrayed in a different manner.

In a collaboration diagram, we eliminate the lifelines used to portray objects and actors. Rather, we lay out instance icons representing objects and stick figures representing actors in whatever configuration is most visually appealing. We then use lines and arrows to represent the flow of messages and responses back and forth between these objects/actors. Because we lose the top-to-bottom chronological sense of message flow that we had with the sequence diagrams, we compensate ...