Domain model
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A domain model can be thought of as a conceptual model of a system which describes the various entities involved in that system and their relationships. The domain model is created to document the key concepts and the vocabulary of the system. The model identifies the relationships among all major entities within the system and usually identifies their important methods and attributes. This means that the model provides a structural view of the system which is normally complemented by the dynamic views in Use Case models. An important benefit of a domain model is to describe and constrain system scope.
The domain model can be effectively used to verify and validate the understanding of the problem domain among various stakeholders of the project group. It is especially helpful as a communication tool and a focusing point between technical and business teams.
The domain model can be used at a low level in the software development cycle since the semantics shown therein can be used in the source code. Entities become classes, while methods and attributes can be carried directly to the source code; the same names typically appear in the source code.
The domain model is one of the central artifacts in the project development approach called Feature Driven Development (FDD).
In UML, a class diagram is used to represent the domain model.
