Let me tell you a story. Great projects start with a strong user story, only a story cannot stand alone – enter the hero – the winning acceptance criteria. Projects need this criteria to provide a way to clearly demonstrate if your project and its team has indeed made the user story come to life. In this session, we show you how to craft no-fail user acceptance stories. Walk away with the confidence to outline the needs and requirements of your site and ensure that everyone in your organization get the results they’re looking for.

1. Website Musts:
How to Define Everything That
Your Website Needs to Do
Drupal Day #16NTCDrupal
Presented by Anne Stefanyk, CEO - Kanopi Studios

3. Defining Your
Audience

4. ● Who is this web/app for?
● Why will they use it?
● When will they use it?
● How will they use it?
● Why will they keep using it?
Uncover user segments

5. For [ target audience #1 ]
that [ cares about topic x],
[ this organization ] is a [ solution/product/service ]
that [ provides benefit y ].
Try different value statements

6. Value Statement:
“For young families who care about the health of
their children, ‘Community Gardening
Organization’ provides services and resources
that educate families to about healthy eating and
engages children and families in community
gardening activities.”

7. 1. Families looking for an activity to do together.
2. Retired couples who want to volunteer together.
3. Families and individuals looking for ways to eat
healthy on a low income.
Audience Segment Examples

8. For families with school aged children, that are
looking for a way to volunteer together,
‘Community Garden’ is an organization that provides
opportunities for children to learn how to give back
while spending time with their parents and siblings.
Example value statement 1
Families looking for an activity to do together.

9. For retired couples who are looking for a way to
volunteer together, ‘Community Garden’ is an
organization that provides opportunities for couples
to spend time together doing something that makes
a difference in the community.
Example value statement 2
Retired couples who want to volunteer together.

10. For families who are looking for a way to eat fresh,
healthy food, ‘Community Garden’ is an
organization that provides opportunities for people
to help grow, harvest and enjoy food grown locally.
Example value statement 3
Families and individuals looking for ways to eat
healthy on a low income.

11. User Personas

12. 1. Represent a user group for your website.
2. Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values.
3. Express and focus on the major needs and expectations of
the most important user groups.
4. Describe user's expectations and how they're likely to use
the site.
5. Express common user concerns and objections.
This will aid in uncovering features and functionality.
Tips for Effective User Personas

13. Tactics to Create User
Personas

14. What triggered the site visitor
to browse your site?
Example: A flyer sent home from child’s school with
information about gardening program.
Priority Initiative

15. What results or outcomes do they expect from
visiting your site?
Example: Information on dates and locations of
gardening events in their neighborhood.
Success Factors

16. What might prevent them from
achieving desired result?
Example: Current site is focused towards donations
and event information is hard to find.
Perceived Barriers

17. What criteria would the site visitor use during
their evaluation of your offerings?
Example: ease of finding time and location of events,
number of gardening events, ease of scheduling a
space for their family to participate.
Decision Criteria

18. What is the key factor that will trigger the
decision to act? What resources will they trust in
helping them make a decision to move forward?
Example: The child’s school is sponsoring a
gardening day through Community Gardening
Program so they will sign-up.
Conversion Path

19. 1. Look at your Google Analytics.
2. Administer a survey.
3. Place a pop up.
4. Interview your audience.
Real Data Speaks Volumes

20. Source Demographic Data from “Audience
Reports” in Google Analytics

22. Example User Persona

23. “I want to improve my children’s eating habits by
learning about healthy eating through gardening.”
Busy Bee Mom

24. Busy Bee Mom
Age: 29-44 / Priority 45%
Lives in Berkeley, owns her home. Married with two grade
school age children. College graduate. Works long hours as
a paralegal.
Believes in healthy eating, struggles to cook for family
during the week but makes sure family eats dinner together
most nights. Children are in school or childcare most of the
day and eat most meals at school. Parent has limited
control over child’s food choices.
Anti-fast food but buys convenience foods at the market.
Has guilt about not having more time with her children.
Buys organic whenever possible and shops at farmers
market on occasion.

25. User Stories

26. Establish your organizational objective, or the
action you want users to take on your site.
Identify the objectives, needs, and desires of your
users.
Designing the User Story

27. As a [type of site visitor] I need a way to [do
something] so that I can [benefit somehow].
Remember to follow the value statements
User Story Template

28. “As a parent of young children, I need a way to find
events in my neighborhood that will teach my
children about gardening.”
User Story Example

29. Defining Features

30. Features are the actions that your user needs to be
able to take on the site.
Action: “Families need to be able to see a list of
gardening events for children taking place in their
neighborhood.”
Feature: An event content type that can be sorted
by date, age range and geographic location.
What are Features?

31. Mapping user tasks by persona

32. ❤
Finding the sweet spot between your organization’s
needs, your users’ needs and your technical needs.
Getting what you need
on your site

33. Questions?