Abstract: “Formal specification techniques, e.g. Z have been applied in a variety of application areas to provide for clear and unambiguous specifications. Diagrams on the other hand have also been used in various areas and in software engineering they could be used to add a visual component to software specifications. It is plausible that diagrams may also be used to reason in a semi-formal way about the properties of a specification. In this paper we employ a case study approach to determine the extent to which diagrammatic notations can successfully be used to specify system properties. Comparisons on the merits of a diagrammatic notation are presented towards the end of the paper.”

Keywords: case study, diagrammatic notation, formal specification, Spider diagrams, Venn diagrams, Z