Requirements Specification using User Stories

Abstract

Collecting and analyzing user requirements is undoubtedly a really complicated and often problematic process in software development projects. There are several approaches, which suggest ways of managing user’s requirements; some of the most well-known are IEEE 830 software requirements specification (SRS), use cases, interaction design scenarios, etc. Many software experts believe the real user requirements emerge during the development phase. By constantly viewing functional sub-systems of the whole system and participating, in fact, in all phases of system development, customers/users can revise their requirements by adding, deleting, or modifying them. However, in order for this to become possible, it is important to adopt a totally different approach than the traditional one (waterfall model approach), concerning not only the management of user’s requirements, but also the entire software development process in general. Agile methodologies represent this different approach since the iterative and incremental way of development they propose includes user requirements revision mechanisms and user active participation throughout the development of the system. The most famous approach concerning requirements specification among the supporters of the agile methodologies is probably user stories. User stories and their main characteristics are thoroughly demonstrated in this chapter. After reading this chapter, the authors hope that the reader may have gained all the basic understanding regarding the use of user stories.