Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual, The, Second Edition

Design Views

The previous views model the concepts in the application from a logical viewpoint. The design views model the design structure of the application itself, such as its expansion into structured classifiers, the collaborations that provide functionality, and its assembly from components with well-defined interfaces. These views provide an opportunity to map classes onto implementation components and expand high-level classes into supporting structure. Implementation diagrams include the internal structure diagram, the collaboration diagram, and the component diagram.

Internal structure diagram

Once the design process begins, classes must be decomposed into collections of connected parts that may be further decomposed in turn. A structured ...