{"id":375,"date":"2006-08-24T03:10:12","date_gmt":"2006-08-24T08:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/archives\/375"},"modified":"2008-01-10T07:14:38","modified_gmt":"2008-01-10T12:14:38","slug":"my-agile-excitement-part-1-stories-are-based-on-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/archives\/375","title":{"rendered":"My Agile Excitement, Part 1: Stories are based on Users"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As noted in my first agile <a href=\"http:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/archives\/369\">worry<\/a>, I am often scared that features of a given piece of software will be built based on reasons other than <em>user<\/em> needs. Yesterday I learned that story cards are, indeed, quite user centered.<\/p>\n<p>The format we learned for creating a card is as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As a [ person ]<br \/>\nI&#8217;d like to [ action ]<br \/>\nso that [ reason for action ]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This card is used as a discussion piece with clients, and is eventually used by developers to create particular functionality.<\/p>\n<p>What excites me most about these story cards is the fact that right at the start, a <em>person<\/em> is identified for whom the functionality is important. This means that one cannot simply create a story for a feature that is &#8220;cool,&#8221; nor one that is simply unneeded. Also, the cards are to be specific, so the user cannot simply be some general party involved, such as &#8220;customer,&#8221; &#8220;client,&#8221; &#8220;computer user,&#8221; etc. User needs are heeded in a feature-by-feature manner, so the people who will eventually use the software simply cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n<p>Now, there are still a number of ways in which a particular piece of software can veer from user-centredness. A bad interface to a set of features, for example, will make all other attempts at user centered design moot. Also, simply because the features of a piece of software have user needs in mind, the package of features may be counter to this spirit. Among other things I hope to learn at TWU is how to apply standard User Experience Design principles to Agile Methods so that the process <em>and <\/em>product are excellent for the builders and users of software, respectively. Hopefully what I will learn in the coming weeks (not to mention months and years) will help contribute to the growing knowledge in these combined fields.<\/p>\n<p>For the moment, I am excited about agile&#8230;keep it comin&#8217;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As noted in my first agile worry, I am often scared that features of a given piece of software will be built based on reasons other than user needs. Yesterday I learned that story cards are, indeed, quite user centered. The format we learned for creating a card is as follows: As a [ person [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16,14,12,13,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-rambling","category-agile-development","category-bangalore-india-2006","category-technology","category-thoughtworks","category-thoughtworks-university"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}