User Stories Focusing the UI Design Gabriel Spitz

User Stories – Focusing the UI Design Gabriel Spitz

Gaining an Understanding One of the early steps in designing a user-interface for an application is to gain a deep understanding of what is it that we are building for We want to know The goal/objective of our application Who will use our application – User Persona What will it be used for – User Stories How will it be used – Task Analysis

What are User stories? (1/2) A tool to help us articulate the usage of our application by end user They are short stories in the form of As a …. . . (Role) I want to. . (basic user task) In order to. . . (achieve a specific user goal)

Example of a User Story As a commuter I want to know when is the next bus to the Red Line So I can arrive to the station just in time for the bus Next Bus to Red line

Example of a User Story As a commuter I want to know when is the Last bus to the Red Line So I can stay and work late in the Library Bus Schedule to Red line

What are User stories? (2/2) User Stories describes something that a user wants to accomplish by using our Application Notice that the story is told from a user perspective and in their own words They serve as a reminder of the user goal Help organize and prioritize the UI - the way the screens will be laid out

So Why User Story? Users stories help up bridge the gap between users Needs, Goals, and Context of Use that we identified during the Persona development and actual user interface

Benefits of User Stories Help us stay user focused and keep the user at the center of the design Promote cooperation Prevent Feature creep and design dead-ends

Characteristics of user-stories (1/2) Short, but descriptive - They do not include every detail about the user, only what we want to accomplish Define the user type/role - This helps us focus on users characteristics that relate to our product usage Outline the main need or problem that our problem should solve

Characteristics of user-stories (2/2) Independent - they do not overlap in concept with other stories and can be implemented in any order Valuable - They need to be valuable to customers Small - in terms of implementation Testable - can be tested

User Scenario You can complement User Stories with User Scenario They are detailed description of what user do with the product and why they do it They are longer and contain more information and are more informative than user story The clearly describe the use and use situation

For Your First presentation - 7/11/16 Describe the product/application for which you are designing the UI I identify and describe shortly the 2 -3 primary users of the application Write down 3 -4 user stories persona