How stories capture interactions.
Manuel Imaz, David Benyon · Edinburgh Napier Research Repository (Edinburgh Napier University) · 1999
Stories have an important role in designing HCI systems because they contribute to the representation of contextual information. User Stories are the first artefacts we use in order to describe interactions, but for implementation purposes we need something more formal such as Use Cases. In this sense, Use Cases are similar to user stories but different in that they lose most of the context that user stories maintain. User stories are the bones with which to complete a skeletal script of interactions. At the same time, stories capture much of the intentions of the users, allowing to trace intentions (derived from the context of the activity or workplace) to a set of interactions between actors and system that constitute a set of use cases. The paper proposes an approach to analysing user stories through experientialist concepts of stories, mental spaces, projection and blends in order to be able to establish a more rigorous traceability between user stories (which could be considered as pre-requirements) and semi-formal requirements such as use cases.