Blog
Create User Stories To Help Develop Your Project or App
Creating User Stories is an important part of developing your app or service. Learn why this is an important part of Agile Development.
Creating User Stories is an important part of developing your app or service. Learn why this is an important part of Agile Development.
June 16th, 2022
Creating User Stories is an important part of developing your app or service. Learn why this is an important part of Agile Development.
Everyone loves a good story like Harry Potter or Jurassic Park, no wait, we're not talking about those types of stories. We're talking about user stories for developers. Utilizing user stories for development is a great exercise for outlining the core features and audience for a project. Creating user stories is a key component of Agile Software development and puts end-users at the center of the conversation, shifting the project focus from code to users. Because it describes the functionality from a user’s point of view, it facilitates product discussions, both within the product development team and with external stakeholders.
Generally, a story is written by the product owner, or product manager and submitted to the stakeholders for review. The Sunrise Integration development team creates user stories for all features and projects. We believe the technique yields better usability.
A user story is a simple description of a feature as written from the perspective of the person who will use the functionality. The purpose of a user story is to articulate how a feature will deliver value back to the user. User stories follow a simple formula:
As a [persona], I [want] so that [reason]
Persona: Who are we building this feature for? What is the persona of the person who needs/wants this feature?
Want: What is the feature or action that the persona is attempting?
Reason: What is the benefit or expected result of the "want" action? This is the value they get from the particular feature.
User stories help to achieve clarity on what is being built, for whom, why they need it, and when. It's a simple language-based approach that allows technical and non-technical teams to collaborate on the product scope. The process of writing the user stories helps the team understand the features and user-needs of the project. The stories also provide a cause-and-effect outline how the features produce results.
Different users will have different requirements and goals. Focusing on different Personas helps outline a comprehensive solution taking all
An effective user story helps agile development teams create simple descriptions of users requirements. Creating effective user stories starts in the discovery phase by conducting interviews with the target users, to understand their needs. By analyzing the problems of each persona, you can define the ways the product/app/service will solve their challenges.
The user story should then take into account the needs of the development process. The stories should not be written as tasks but rather a story of the feature:
It should describe the smallest user-interaction.
It should include acceptance for functional and non-functional features.
A good user story is simple, small and accurate. The development team will use user stories for team planning and project estimation. The Project managers can then create tasks and sprints based upon the user stories.
Creating user stories is a great place to start when outlining the project specifications. User stories can benefit the company in different ways. However, they shouldn't replace proper documentation. The user stories are part of the grander documentation and SRS.
Writing user stories before starting development helps to create features that are useful to your audience. They are an important part of Agile development. If you're not creating user stories for your project, then maybe now is the time to give it a try.