Title: ------ The Graphical Depiction of Design Patterns Abstract: --------- If design patterns are to fulfill their promise of dramatically improving the quality, timeliness and reusability of software, it is essential that techniques be found to document them concisely and accurately. Graphical notations offer potentially the most powerful approach, but unfortunately the current techniques for pattern documentation rely on notations which were initially developed for capturing analysis and design information, and are thus unable to describe some important aspects of patterns. This paper puts forward a notation which is tailored to the description of the implementation-level mechanisms from which design patterns are constructed, and is therefore much better suited to their documentation. The features of the notation are first illustrated through their use in the documentation of the well known Observer (or Publisher-Subscriber) pattern, and then applied to the description of a new design pattern called Advertisement. Author contact info: -------------------- Carl W. Irving <-- Contact Research Assistant University of Houston Clear Lake Box 384, 2700 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058 Phone: (713) 283 3837 Fax: (713) 293 3869 email: cwirving@ricis.cl.uh.edu Colin Atkinson Assistant Professor University of Houston Clear Lake Box 2, 2700 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058 Phone: (713) 283 3878 Fax: (713) 293 3869 email: atkinson@cl.uh.edu