Merja Bauters

User Story in Brief

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UX and Agile methods? More methods? – Place of User Stories• Both deal with Wicked problems (see Rittel

& Webber 1984).• Software engineers dealing with ill‑defined

problems move repeatedly between examining scenarios/Personas/User stories, clarifying requirements, defining their solution at a high level, and doing low‑level design for difficult elements.

• ( Guindon, Raymonde. “Designing the Design Process: Exploiting Opportunistic Thoughts.” Human‑Computer Interaction, June 1990. Retrieved October 4, 2009)

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Scenario“A narrative description of what people do and experience as they try to make use of computer systems and applications” (Carroll 1995)

Provides broader perspective into the needs, goals, tool ecology and practices

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• The goal is to obtain insight into the attributes of an experience that would help or delight people based on research evidence (Hawley 2009).

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Storytelling – Personas

6© 2006-2007 Jeff Patton, All rights reserved, www.agileproductdesign.com

Having a good list of users/customers helps us understand functional scope

How many different types of users/customers will use the tool?

What goals will they be in pursuit of?

What tasks will they need to perform?

Which of those tasks will the tool to be designed support?

7© 2006-2007 Jeff Patton, All rights reserved, www.agileproductdesign.com

Profile users/customers to identify relevant characteristics about themTo help understanding the characteristics of users/customers that might have bearing on the design, construct a profile containing information about the type of user relevant to the tool being created.

1. # of users that occupy this user type2. General responsibilities or activities3. Computer skills4. Domain expertise5. Goals: how does the tool help this user reach their

goals?6. Pain Points: what nagging problems can the tool

help to solve?7. Usage Contexts: where will the tool be used?8. Tool Ecosystem: what other tools does this user

type rely on?9. Collaborators: who does this user work with to help

reach their goals?10.Frequency of Use: how often is this type of user

likely to use the tool?

8© 2006-2007 Jeff Patton, All rights reserved, www.agileproductdesign.com

Build a simple persona from your profile data

Include: Name A role or job title Quotes in the personas language Relevant demographics Descriptions that reveals goals,

motivations, pain points Descriptions that describe primary

activities this user type will engage in.

your details here

9© 2006-2007 Jeff Patton, All rights reserved, www.agileproductdesign.com

Usability criteria/design imperatives

What characteristics must the design have to be suitable for this user type? (design imperatives)

user satisfaction user convenience necessity for proficiency importance of accuracy

ease of learning retention of learning efficiency of interaction reliability of interaction

* Source Constantine & Lockwood Ltd.

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Process....from Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-centered Design by Desirée Sy

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How to write a user story for SCRUM Separation of the user/customer types’ goals (previous slides) Template: As a <some role>, I want <something>, so that <some

value> Describes who wants, what wants and what for in one sentence Examples:

• “As an end user I want to be able to upload my picture to my profile page, so that my profile page looks cool”

• “As a sales person, I want to see statistics of my performance in graphical charts, so that I monitor my performance”

• “As an administrator, I want to have database backups, so that I won’t be in big trouble if something unexpected happens”

User story does not define any details of the implementation! Every user story needs a Definition of Done (acceptance criteria)

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Definition of Done Definition of Done must describe exactly what “done” means

Careful attention Must be payed when defining the DoD The scrum team must challenge the DoD, if necessary

• “What’s not in DoD, is not needed” Item is either “done” or “not done”

Example: Story: Picture upload end user can upload his/her picture from profile settings page picture is shown on the left upper corner of the profile page picture is scaled to fit the profile picture box on the profile page functional tests are passed regression tests are passed design documents are updated user's guide is updated

• Does not define any details of the implementation!

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Process....from Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-centered Design by Desirée Sy

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• UX designers to work in parallel with the rest of an agile team, developing the UX design slightly in advance of the next development cycle.

• For software with multiple target user groups, care must be taken to avoid representing one user group over others – e.g., using personas and scenarios to maintain Consistency!

• Use of Rapid prototyping for user experience — e.g., paper prototypes— can let you elicit rapid feedback on your designs.

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Some characteristics and challenges to UX

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• Whenever possible, test the usability of your designs with representative users.

• Heuristic evaluation techniques can provide high value for a minimal outlay of time and resources, and they can help other development team members understand the software’s user experience

• Ensure that your testing focuses tightly on the areas of the user experience that a development release affects.

• Contextual inquiry plays a critical role in our Agile UCD process.

• Early design “chunks” must be low-level and fundamental — design attributes that will not change as more design chunks are added on top of them

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Some characteristics and challenges to UX

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Sources Guindon, Raymonde. “Designing the Design Process: Exploiting Opportunistic

Thoughts.” Human‑Computer Interaction, June 1990. Last retrieved October 4, 2009 from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1456616

H. Rittel and M.M. Webber, "Planning Problems are Wicked Problems," in N. Cross (ed.), Developments in Design Methodology, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1984, pp. 135-144.

Jeff Patton. Personas, Profiles, Actors, & Roles: Modelling users to target successful product design. Retrieved Retrieved October 4, 2009 www.agileproductdesign.com/downloads/patton_user_modeling.ppt

Carroll, J.M (1995) Introduction: The Scenario Perspective on System Development. In J.M. Carroll (ed.) Scenario-Based Design: Envisioning work and Technology in System Development New York: Wiley

Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-Centered Design. Desiree Sy . Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 2, Issue 3, May 2007, pp. 112-132 Last retrieved October 4, 2009 from: http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/2007may/agile-ucd.html

Michael Hawley (2009). Design Research Methods for Experience Design. In UXmatters Last retrieved October 4, 2009 from http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/01/design-research-methods-for-experience-design.php

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Other Sources Carroll John M. (2000). Making use: scenario-based design of

human-computer interactions. Cambridge, London, Massachusetts: The MITT Press.

And case example site: http://ucs.ist.psu.edu/ See description with examples about UX & Agile methods

emerging to fuse them ...http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/2007may/agile-ucd.html,

Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User – Centred Design http://agileproductdesign.com/blog/emerging_best_agile_ux_practice.html

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