User stories

"Then the LORD said to me, 'Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.'" - Habakkukk 2:2, NLT

At this point we're going to describe the system we're going to build. You might not have heard of user stories - that's OK. What they are NOT is the kind of stories users tend to tell me sometimes. Stories like "the website is broken". These stories are mystery stories because often that's all they say*!

No, this is about another kind of story. It's a story that defines a person using a service, what the person needs it for, and what the person's goal is**. Generally, you can write them on a post-it note or an index card - they're pretty high level.

Here are the user stories for the web application we'll be building:

Story 1

As an employee
I want to browse the employees
So that I can see who my colleagues are

Story 2

As an employee
I want to search the employees
So that I can find a particular colleagues

Story 3

As an administrator
I want to manage the employees in my index
So that I can add and remove employees as they join and leave my company

Story 4

As an administrator
I want to log in and log out
So that I can access user management but others cannot

So that's a pretty small set of features, but it's enough for us :-) The application will be publicly accessible from the company's intranet, but administrators will be able to log in and administrate the database.

* obviously, such light descriptions of problems are an opportunity to educate your users and engage better with them. Please don't go thinking I'm all gung-ho about customer support! I'd hate someone to read this book and think "Davies is a total cowboy, I'm not hiring him!" ;-)

** I use "hir" as a gender neutral pronoun, but I refuse to use "they" or "their" as a singular pronoun - such clunky grammar hurts my brain!