Adding human interaction aspects in the writing of User Stories: a perspective of software developers

TLDR: An investigation on how developers use the techniques/methods of the Human Computer Interaction to support them in the writing of user stories finds that some techniques/ methods are used only to unfold functional requirements and not to report aspects regarding the usability and the user experience.

Abstract: Background: User stories are artifacts largely used to describe requirements in agile software development. However, the writing of user stories usually is focused on describing functional aspects of the software, leaving aside non-functional aspects as usability and user experience. Objective: This paper aims to present the findings of an investigation on how developers use the techniques/methods of the Human Computer Interaction to support them in the writing of user stories; and if, in fact, when the developers use them, they add the usability and user experience aspects in the user story description. Method: An experimental study was conducted to catch and understand the participants' rationales of using each technique/method. Results: Based on the participants' notes, a qualitative analysis was carried out, considering the 92 user stories produced by 42 participants. The results have shown that, in most cases, the participants recognized the importance and the role of the techniques/methods in the writing of user stories. Conclusions: As a conclusion, we can pinpoint that some techniques/methods are used only to unfold functional requirements and not to report aspects regarding the usability and the user experience.