Examples of User Stories 2020

I’ve been involved with several projects over the last few months, and each has user stories associated with it. People often ask for examples of user stories, so I thought I’d share these.

The Form

By default, I use the “Role-Action-Context” form that Industrial Logic uses. For example: “User loads from database – incrementally”. But if that form doesn’t fit, I use free text: “Better appearance for table”. The titles are just a reminder, not a specification.

I try to write a story title that makes sense for the most primitive version up to the most advanced.

If there are details to add to the card, I add them as bullet points, in order of increasing sophistication. (Occasionally, I’ll use separate cards that share a title.)

Yacht – A Toy Example

I set out to explore how TDD would interact with developing a user interface (in SwiftUI). Ted Young had been using the Yacht game for this in Java, and Mike Hill had suggested it as a good testbed.

The Yacht game is a predecessor of the commercial game Yahtzee: you roll five dice (some up to three times), and make combinations worth various points.

These are small stories – 12 stories for a project that lasted about 15-20 hours. I used the role-action-context form for a few, but others just name a rule category.

I feel like there’s a missing story: something about the lifecycle of a whole game.

The Stories:

User starts turn (initial roll)
Player scores in open category
Category: Yacht (5 of a kind) → 50
Category: Choice (any) – Σ dice
System totals score
Player re-rolls selected dice
Category: 4 of a kind – Σ 4 dice
Category: Ones – Sixes – Score Σ i
Category: Little Straight 12345 → 30
Category: Big Straight → 30
[Category] Full House: 3 + 2 – Σ dice
Multiple players take turns

Festival Manager

I’m helping someone run a music festival (an educational conference for musicians). Our online presence is like a few others I’ve seen: cobbled together from a website tool, a form manager, Google docs, spreadsheets, etc.

I’ve identified these stories as we’ve worked on this, and have done a little “spike” work, but I haven’t committed to this as an active project.

These stories are in rows, where further-down rows happen later in time.

The Stories:

Admin adds instructor
- One at a time
- In bulk
- With active flag
List all instructors
- With bio
- Active instructors only

Admin adds class
- Title, main body
- Instrument
- Timeslot
List classes
- All
- By group (include/exclude)
- By instrument
- By time
List classes (2)
- Indicate which are full
- Indicate capacity remaining
- Sort order (time, instrument)

Admin schedules classes
- Grid style
- Color coded
- Warn about constraint violations
Student registers for classes
- Registration
- Notify admins
- Notify student

System prints student schedule
- Badge size
- Timeslot, class, room
System prints instructor schedules
- Timeslot, room, list of students
System prints room schedule
- Timeslot, class, instructor

System prints master schedule
Admin finds person [as scheduled]
- Where is student?
- Where is instructor?
- For any time

BFBF App – Punchlist

I’m helping a non-profit get an app published.

The development was mostly done before I started working with them. What we have instead is more of a punchlist – a list of tasks to be done. But some of those tasks are user stories as well.

Each row has “state” (Keystone, Blocked, Todo, In Progress, or Done) and “who will do what by when”.

Most of the things on there are tasks: “Investigate blank screen on first use”, “Set up ad service”.

The stories on the punchlist (where BFBF is the organization):

User adjusts font size
Add dark mode support
BFBF reviews metrics “monthly”
User searches for word/phrase
User marks favorite articles
BFBF edits article

I’d guess the effort for those is “days to weeks”, although it is a part-time project for me.

SortTables™ Data Viewer

I had developed a basic version of this years ago, and decided to use that rewrite as a basis for ongoing sessions on Twitch (https://twitch.tv/williamwake).

The stories:

Spike: Multiple rows and columns
User scrolls table
Column and row headers don’t scroll
Rows are sorted by column (1st column = primary key etc.)
User specifies column order [sorting updates]
User loads a file (v0.1 – bundle)
User moves “bar” column (sets last sort key)
System hides duplicate rows – gray out past bar
User reorders columns – drag & drop
Explore design alternatives [spike]
Better appearance in table
User loads from database – one table
User loads from database – incrementally
User loads from database – db [database] removes dupes
User loads from database – many tables [current story]
User sorts ascending/descending
User searches
System displays # of folded (unique) rows
User filters out < or > selected value
User saves a search / view
User re-shapes table
Undo/redo
(more to come as development continues)

The stories average a week of show time (about 8 hours real time) although it’s probably a little higher because I often do some research between episodes.

Conclusion

I hope these examples give you a feel for the type and scope of stories I write. User stories are not trying to be a requirements document – just enough that the right people can have a conversation. Good luck with yours!