Writing User Stories: "As a user..."? Lame!

(from guest blogger, Matthew Davison)

When I think about good user stories, I get excited...probably too excited. I like to think of them as menu items – a general summary, with enough detail to give an idea about the food, but not a recipe with instructions. But what if a restaurant has no clue what type of diners they serve? What if their clientele were all just "users"? What are the risks?

Imagine my menu lists a "rice dish" and my understanding of the customer went something like this:

                As a user

                I want a rice dish

                So that I can satisfy my appetite

Would you be surprised if the diner ended up with a rice cake? Are you sure the customer would be satisfied?

Now, imagine the following:

                As a hungry diner that likes Thai food

                I want a rice dish

                So that I can satisfy my appetite

Would you be surprised if the diner was served Khao Pad (Thai fried rice)? Would you have more confidence that you created the best dish?

Or, maybe the customer really, truly want's something like a rice cake:

                As a diner on a diet with very little hunger

                I want a rice dish

                So that I can satisfy my appetite

Would you be surprised if they got a rice cake?

How much more valuable are these more nuanced descriptions to a developer than "as a user"? This line often gets overlooked but understanding where the customer has come from and what they are trying to achieve can profoundly impact designs. Fortunately, many businesses are starting to adopt the habit of creating customer journeys and customer profiles, which can be a great tool for informing user stories.

Some of the questions I like to ask are:

• Do we use the tools available to us?
• Are customer profiles made visible to the development team?
• How does the organization get to know their customer? And can we use this information?