Mike Lyons breaks down three user stories about household cleaning and shows why they fail: vague acceptance criteria, unclear personas like "kitchen user", and mismatches between what the title promises and what the story actually tests. Good user stories need concrete, testable criteria so everyone understands what done looks like.
Okay, welcome back. Let me share with you some of the stories I've gotten from other people in the past. So, again, these are stories from other folks just like you, who have written. Taken a first shot at stories. So let's take a look at this first one here. Title is Clean Couch. As a homeowner, I want the family room cleaned up so that I can sit on the couch. Acceptance criteria. Couch is clean. Pillows are fluffed. Okay, well, anything we can do to make that one better? Let's look at, say, the description. To me, I look at that title and the description and sort of wonder. That's a little tricky there. The family room is cleaned up, but the title is Focused in on a clean Couch. So sometimes people have more than just a couch in the family room. So do we need to, you know, dust around the. Maybe there's a TV or a table, a coffee table. So if it's Clean Couch as the title, I would think the focus would be on the. On the couch. Not so much a clean living room. And then we have I can sit on the couch. Okay, that's good. That's now Clean Couch, so that I can sit on it. Okay, but I mean, I could sit on the couch if there were books all over it and blankets, but it wouldn't be too comfortable. So should we do anything about that? And then finally, the acceptance criteria. I wonder. I might ask for that to be a little more detailed. You know, couch is clean. I don't really know what that means. Does that mean we've vacuumed between the cushions or pull the cushions off? Is it that there's just no stuff on the couch? I might ask a little bit more about that. All right, well, that's a good first one. Let's take a look at another one. Here's the title. Kitchen Countertop. All right, well, that's pretty specific. So the room is the kitchen. We're going to focus on the countertop. That's good. As a kitchen user, I want a clean countertop so that I can locate my seasonings quickly when I'm cooking. Acceptance criteria. Seasonings are alphabetically sorted left to right. Seasonings are not expired. Seasonings are fresh. Counter is free of clutter. Okay, anything you see we might do differently here. The title says kitchen countertop. And I thought that was like, okay, this is gonna be great. It's just on the countertop. But then all of a sudden, we switch focus and go into something about seasonings. So I'm struggling to link those two together. And then as a kitchen User. Well, that's a little vague, really. Our user Personas we insert there, they should be pretty specific. This particular user really appears to be more interested in cooking and using spices. So is it, you know, as a chef or as a food preparer in the kitchen maybe? I don't really know what a kitchen user is. The focus seems to be on seasonings. And then what does fresh mean? Does fresh mean not expired? Because we say season. Seasonings are not expired. Seasonings are fresh. Is there a difference there? Maybe. Maybe something isn't. I would want a little more detail there and I would try to ask that have those conversations with our product owners of looking at that story. All right, last one here. Let's check this out. Guest bedroom, bed. A little more specificity. We have the room and we have what we're looking at here. Okay, let's see. As a host, I want my guests to feel welcome and comfortable when they sleep in the guest bed so that they give me a five star review on my rental platform. Ah, okay, that's interesting. Acceptance criteria. Fresh sheets before each new guest. Fitted sheets fits snugly around mattress. Flat sheet tucked in comforter free of wrinkles. Pillows are fluffed. Mint on pillow. Oh, mint on pillow. I like mint and blow. That's pretty good. What improvements do you think about that? Maybe we would define fresh. Does that mean like just wash just out of the dryer? Maybe. I don't know. This is really a pretty good one. We, we have some good clarity. The title matches the description. The AC is pretty concrete. We kind of know when we'll be done. Maybe there's another AC you might insert there if you're getting very granular around. Maybe the, the dust ruffle on the box springs or maybe how many pillows? You know, maybe there's multiple pillows. I don't know. I'm not a home decorator. What do I know? All right, so there you go. A few examples. Some, some good, some hit or miss, you know, some need some improvement. And that's kind of how it goes. Here's the key takeaway. You will get better at this over time, and it will become more natural. If this is the first time you've written user stories, it might seem a little weird. You'll get better at it. You'll get better at it over time, and what you'll find is that you'll get to shared understanding much, much quicker when you follow this process.
