What is a User Story in Agile?

The user story is a natural language-based and informal way of specifying one or more requirements of software and product development. A user story is usually used in the agile model to describe from the end user’s perspective which can ultimately help us create a simplified description of the requirements. Depending on the situation, various stakeholders, end users, and team members can write the story. This article focuses on discussing user stories in Agile.

What is a User Story in Agile?

The requirements in the development of software and products constantly change and according to those changes we must implement proper features here we use the concept of user story.

1. The user story provides us with an informal description of what the requirements are and based on those features and requirements the team develops the solution.
2. The user story is very popular in software development and other industries as it’s very simple to implement and understand.

As we know that the agile model follows the agile approach, it also follows the incremental approach to gather brief notes about the requirements. Each note contains 20-25 words usually. The agile approach is helpful and widely used in the software development industry as well. There are 3C’s to the development of a user story, which are the following:

1. Card
2. Conversation
3. Confirmation

Though there’s no specific documentation as to when the user story method was first introduced, many believe it was originated from Kent Beck’s book called “Extreme Programming Explained“.

Key Terminologies

The user story method follows a specific structure and key terminologies. Here are some primary terminologies used in user stories:

1. User Persona: The user persona consists of a fictional character which can be used to represent a user or product of the customer. The user persona helps us to understand the customer in a better way so that we can establish clear goals.
2. As a [Role]: It describes a type of user or role for whom we intend to develop the functionality or the feature, it also helps us to better understand the user story.
3. I Want [Feature/Functionality]: Specifies the desired functionality or feature that the user is requesting. it is also a core factor of the user story which tells us what the user wants.
4. So That [Benefit]: Explains the reason or benefit behind the requested feature or functionality. This helps the development team in order to understand the motivation for why the user story is present in the first place.
5. Acceptance Criteria: Acceptance Criteria give us a set of rules or provides a certain criteria that we must ensure for the user story, only once this acceptance criteria is fulfilled only then we can begin the development.
6. Story Points: This provides us with a calculation of the complexity or the size of a user story, which then helps the team to estimate the cost and effort required to implement the story.
7. Epics: Whenever we have large work, we can break it down into smaller and more manageable user stories which are known as Epics. the epics provide a way for us to organize and plan the development.
8. Definition of Done (DoD): This is the set of criteria that must be met for a user story to be considered complete, unlike the acceptance criteria, this criteria is the last process and it includes testing, documentation and other activities involved.

User Story Process

Whenever we want to write the user stories, we must ensure that we don’t start writing the technical tasks immediately and for that, we can use a template that will help us to write the user story in proper format.

Following is a simple user story example:

User story process

The description of format and roles (role, action, benefit) are:

1. Role: The role in the user story is an actual human who interacts with the system.
2. Action: The action is used to represent the actions of the system, as you can guess, it’s usually unique for each of the story. the main key point here is that the active voice is used in the action instead of a passive one. (for example, The meeting was called off.)
3. Benefits: The benefit is the end outcome or the result we obtain from the user story, the benefit must be present for both the user in the user story as well as the user in the real world.

User Story Examples

1. As a [reader], I want [dark mode] so that [I can read at night without damaging my eyes]
2. As a [student], I want [notification reminders for assignment deadlines] so that [I can manage my time and submit assignments on time]

Advantages of User Story

1. Clear communication: User story provides clear communication between developers and stakeholders.
2. Helps in agile development: User stories allow for agile development.
3. Clear customer requirements: User story provides better customer requirements.
4. Easier to track progress: User stories provide a simple and faster way to track and present progress.

Disadvantages of User Story

1. Can lead to misinterpretation: If the user story is too brief then sometimes it can lead to misinterpretation.
2. Limited documentation: The user story has limited documentation as it is informal.
3. Requires strong communication: The development team requires strong communication for user stories to work well.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the advantages are more powerful compared to the disadvantages. the user story helps us to provide an overall description of the product in an informal way. As it’s discussed in conversational language the stakeholders and development team are confident in, it becomes an easy and straightforward way to develop user stories. it’s also very simple and easy to use so if there’s any product or project where you need to use this method then it can be helpful.