User Stories
User Stories are stories narrated by users about how an application or parts of application should function.
Enhancements
It is comparatively easier for users to write User Stories when they ask enhancements to an existing application. For example while asking for enhancements for Microsoft Outlook, a user may ask for more fields in the address book. A user story could be “We need a secondary email address field in the address book”. In a good user story the user would also say how this new field be used. “And the application should try to email the secondary email if the first email fails.”
New Feature
When the user needs a feature that is absent in the existing application he can point to examples in other popular applications that do something similar. For example, “We like Gmail’s Search Email function. We would like to have something similar to search projects.” And follow it with some improvements if required. Like “And we would like to search based on Date of Creation or Estimated Date of Completion”
Original Idea!
When a suitable example does not exist, it is best to write down one’s thoughts as clearly as possible and discuss it with the developers as the story is being written. This way the users and the developers are more likely to understand each other.
