17 User Story Examples for When the Ink Runs Out (2023)

User stories help us align with our ownuser personalitiesin the context of the product we are designing. While a user persona's bio describes their life and suffering, a user story describes how they use a feature of your product – in layman's terms!

In the agile environment, product owners along with UX designers tend to write user stories into tabs that are passed to the design team and spark conversations. We can also digitally annotate them using Office or Google Docs for inclusion in the Scrum backlog.

The fact that they are written in simple language and free of technical jargon means the design team feels less constrained by technical details. They have more opportunities to be creative with their feature design ideas. Read on for some great user story examples!

We've put together some examples of what user stories might look like in real life. We've included examples of traditional user stories on index cards or sticky notes, as well as examples of digital user stories that can be easily shared on an online platform.

Some even come in the form of downloadable templates, such as Word and Excel files! Let's dive in:

In the Priority section, you can assign a priority from low to medium or high. It's important to prioritize items on your backlog, as you find some features are more in demand.Matrix traceability requirements. Next to Priority is the Estimation section. Here you can indicate how much time you think the team will need to implement this feature. Here you can assign the corresponding number of Scrum Points.

Next in this user story example you have the user story section and finally the acceptance criteria. The acceptance criteria are often written on the back of the index print, but since it is a two-dimensional digital print, the acceptance criteria are clearly written as a kind of conclusion just below. Some may find it particularly useful to have everything on the same page.

Speaking of epic user story examples, you might want to check out theseepic user story template. It provides a great way to group sub stories by your epic stories.

Each feature in the epic story is listed vertically, with columns representing the user, the action or wish, and the benefit. The last column consists of a vertical arrangement of user stories in sub-rows packed into each cell.

this downloadablePowerslides user story exampleshows us another neat way to organize our user stories. These cards can be displayed in a Powerpoint presentation, printed, and distributed.

We also like the clear division of the most important sections: the user story and user identification, as well as some sections that set it apart from other examples.

Here we have a traditional one.Example of front and back of a user storythis reflects how a user story might be written on a tab. The story clearly shows what the user wants to achieve and why he wants to achieve it.

In this case, they want to cancel their reservations so they don't lose all their money in case a situation arises.

It isExample of a user story of a banking applicationit's a great way to explain a required feature and why the user needs it in a concise way.

It gets right to the point of who the user is and what they need to accomplish. In fact, one of the best things about this is that it even suggests some of the pains that a user of the banking app (the credit card holder in this case) might normally feel, such as: B. Concern about outstanding balance of your credit card. Maintain good credit and get out of the red.

our nextExample user story of WhizibleIt's also a template you can download to give you and your team a head start.

This template allows you to list multiple user stories on the same card. The horizontal columns above show the typical user story formula sentence, which means that the blanks only need to be filled in.

This can definitely save time writing multiple user stories and help you get straight to the point. For example, from this user story example, we can see at a glance that the content manager has the following story:

"As a content manager, I would like to receive a weekly content analytics report so that I can monitor the effectiveness of the content author."

In this example, the user is registered with them and wants to buy a Kindle for their friend. One of the ways the team could respond to this story, depending on who your user character is, could be to include a freebie section on the home screen. It could be something like "The perfect birthday present." On the other hand, they can choose to display a message informing the user that they can send gifts right away while browsing items like the Kindle.

Another measure they may want to track is to make sure the customer can quickly and easily add new addresses or select their current address list. If you use Amazon you will see that this is the case!

It isExample of Easy Agile user storyit's a little different. First, we note that it's remarkably easy on the eyes.

For starters, each row alternates between color and white to easily separate concepts and make scanning easier. The left and right parts of the card, that is, the instructions and the sentence formula, are colored green and blue.

here are someTravel Website User Story Examples. They treat us to four different stories that give us an insight into the various features they may be developing to help their user characters achieve their goals.

However, one problem we see is that three out of four are wrong. Well, not so much bad as rather incomplete. Why? Because user stories should always indicate the reason "why" they want to complete an action.

The function should always provide some benefit to the user. This helps your team prioritize specific features that deliver real value and meaning to your users. And happy users mean a successful product and a happy business.

The first example is about hotel reservations. A better and more complete version could be:

As a user, I would like to book a hotel room near the city center so that I don't have to travel far every day.

It is unlikely that the user does not have a particular location for the hotel in mind, whether they realize it or not. Adding the "why" part will help you find more creative solutions that could help the user, such as: B. Show hotels, based on your budget, that are closer to the city center or airport. This could prevent the user from having to leave the page and look up hotel addresses on Google Maps and check distances. If not, it could just as easily be another travel website that doesn't provide the user with a particularly useful feature.

However, the last user story example is complete and useful to the design team; It shows exactly what the user wants: to be able to save previous reservations and avoid additional data entry effort. It can also help develop better and stricter acceptance criteria.

Agile USA, with itsExample of a sticky note user storyfor an account manager, it succinctly summarizes what should be included in this type of deliverable.

This is a fairly simple example that shows how important information to guide the design and development team can be easily summarized on a simple sticky note. What we like about this type of example is that it is non-intimidating and easy for anyone to understand.

We decided to record thisAlexander Cowan User Story Examplebecause it clearly reflects the level of thought that goes into creating even the simplest user story.

Writing user stories is not just about imagining a what-if situation involving a hypothetical user. Instead, the information should be based on actual research and user personalities. This user story example helps us tap into that information by reminding us of the basics of why we're writing this story in the first place.

The right medium for your user story and the right information to include depends on your organization, the size and scope of your project, and the complexity of the features you're designing.

Regardless of how you decide to convey your user story, the most important thing to consider is research. Once you've done some proper user research and defined your personal profiles, you can start writing your user stories.

By following the best practices outlined in this post and being inspired by (or even downloading) the examples and templates shown, you should be well on your way to writing a great user story.