The moral of User Stories
- Stephen Tlaker
- Feb 21, 2020
- 3 min read
Aims
This purpose of a User Story is to articulate an experience from the users perspective. They help teams organize what exactly it is that they need to do and help further their understanding of the system they are designing and its context.
Outline
A User Story is broken down into three parts:
1. The persona
2. The feature
3. The need satisfied by the feature
More appropriately, a typical template would be:
"As a (user) I want a (feature) so that I can (satisfy a need)"
User Stories allow us to simulate the experience for the user by putting ourselves in their shoes in a relatable manner. Note that the most important aspect here is the end goal (to satisfy a need) as it is what has called the user to action in the first place. For example, a typical User Story for somebody wanting to go on holidays would be:
"As a customer, I want to book flight tickets for next month so I can visit Japan"
While this task may seem straight forward, it is in fact difficult to define the exact set of features required to perform this task, especially for other users that could have similar but different needs. This is when a "Epic" is used which is essentially a very long user story containing many smaller user stories.
Applications
User stories are useful during the early stages of the design process as it allows us to establish a plan before time and effort is invested into a project. Thinking like the user at this stage makes mapping the experience more straight forward. That said, user stories are equally as beneficial for an established project/platform as it can be used to fish out already existing issues. User stories are generally informal as they are written on index cards within a short space of time but the result encourages sense making and communication within the team.
Comments
I personally feel that User Stories are something I've unknowingly done mentally during the process of design but through this research I can see the benefits of writing these things down like the examples shown as it gives a more broad perspective of the experience as a whole. I can see how visualising these stories can help as it also keeps track of things that might get overlooked or forgotten. User stories also allows designers to reflect on the work they have done prior to user testing because at that point they are more than stories, they are actual experiences.
Learning
Creating a user story is relatively easy as it all comes down to applying empathy to the user, a prevalent aspect of UI/UX design. If you are creating one for a project that is in development you first need to establish the type of users you are expecting and adopt their mindset. Think about the things they would want to do and the motive behind it. Applying this to something that has already been developed is much easier as you could simply navigate through the interface as you are creating the story.
Time & Cost
User stories can be created quickly. This of course depends on the scale of the project but generally it is a fast process. Naturally it depends how much attention to detail is put in but the bulk of the work is straight forward. The he materials required are nothing more than a pen and paper so it is also a cost efficient exercise. As User Stories are fast and cheap to create, this makes them a very desirable practice in the industry.
References
Atlassian
Mountain Goat Software
Wikipedia
Youtube
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