8- User Stories
In our last lesson, we identified the product backlog items for the project of setting up an online shopping system for a grocery store.
After that, the product owner will work with the team to add more details to the items in the backlog.
Product backlog items should be detailed to include attributes such as description, order, size, value, and acceptance criteria.
In practice, the method of creating user stories for backlog items is quite common. In fact, it's so common that product backlog items are often called user stories.
User stories are a short description from the point of view of the person requesting the function.
A user story template typically looks like this. “As that person, to achieve that goal, I want this.”,
For example, “Creating the start page.” The first product backlog item on our list. Let's take the expression. “I, as a customer, want to reach the contact information of the market via a website in order to place an order quickly.” A sentence of the form has a structure that answers the questions of who, what and why.
The information contained in the Product backlog item should be concise. Thus, it will be possible to have a common understanding of the work to be done.
In order for user stories to reach the desired result, acceptance criteria must also be defined. This is a way to test whether the story is complete.
Let's add a few acceptance criteria to the start page creation item.
The logo of the institution should appear on the page.
The building image of the market should appear on the page.
The company's address, phone number and email address should appear on the page.
Let's go ahead and examine what another item might look like. For example, the item “View one product”. Assume that the best selling product of this store is Flower Honey. The product most requested by current customers should also have a special place on our website.
Let's create a user story and acceptance criteria to place such a product on our website. “I, as a customer, would like to receive detailed information about the Flower Honey product.” One expression is sufficient.
Acceptance criteria for this item can be as follows.
Is there a link from the home page to the product page?
Is there a picture about the product on the home page?
Is there a short description of the product on the home page?
Is there a description of the benefits of the product on the product page?
Does the product page provide information about the production environment?
As it can be seen, there are also question sentences in this checklist. When someone who reads the acceptance criteria answers yes to these questions, the item or user story will be considered complete.
User story or acceptance criteria may not be very clear at the beginning due to uncertainties. For example, our current acceptance criteria do not contain any clauses about purchasing honey.
When add to cart and credit card payment facilities are added to our site in the next sprints, it will be necessary to switch from the flower honey page to the purchase page. In other words, as our product evolves and we learn more, we will add new elements to our product or improve existing ones.