Use Cases & User Stories

A UX designer needs to know who they are designing for and for what reason. This can start with user personas created in collaboration with the Business to identify target audiences. Their needs are identified and defined using use cases and user stories, the former being very specific while the latter tends to be more general, often incorporating several cases.

My starting point is the stories, typically derived from product requirements, which I strive to make realistic and non-prescriptive. For example, I have seen user stories like “As a subscriber, I want to log in so I can access my personal files”, which basically prescribes an authentication flow. My view is that no user “wants to sign in”. What they want is access to their personal files. If that requires an authentication flow, fine. But what if we can accomplish that differently in the background where the user doesn’t need to sign in?