Usage scenarios
The story of a user reaching a goal: actor, context, trigger, steps, outcome; nominal scenario and variants; breaking a task down into subtasks.
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Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
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- Scenarios
A few cards from the deck
Usage scenario: what is it?
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A short story of a specific person pursuing a goal in a given context, from trigger to outcome, without describing the screen.
It describes what the person wants and does, not what the interface shows: several solutions can then be designed for the same scenario.
Which sentence of a usage scenario already presumes the solution?
- She opens the drop-down list and selects the start time.
- She says at what time her group starts working.
- She spots a free room that can hold six people.
- She checks that the booking has really been saved before she leaves.
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She opens the drop-down list and selects the start time.
“Opens the drop-down list” describes a screen component. The other sentences say what the person wants to obtain, without imposing how the interface offers it.
A usage scenario names an …, a …, a trigger, steps and an ….
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A usage scenario names an actor, a context, a trigger, steps and an outcome.
With these five elements, the story reads as a complete tale. Without the outcome, there is no way to tell whether the goal was reached.
Nominal scenario: what is it?
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The course of events where everything goes as planned, from the trigger to the goal reached.
It serves as the backbone. Variants (room already taken, group booking) and error cases (network lost) hang from it by describing what happens when an event leaves the expected path.
A team writes its scenario: “The user clicks Book, picks the room from the list, clicks Confirm.” The client wants to try a calendar instead of the list. What went wrong and what to do?
- The scenario is complete; just replace “the list” with “the calendar” in each sentence
- It describes the screen instead of the goal; rewrite it as “pick a free room”
- The scenario lacks detail; add the colours and the position of each button
- The scenario is useless; go straight to the mock-up without the story
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It describes the screen instead of the goal; rewrite it as “pick a free room”
A scenario that names components freezes the solution and becomes false at the first change. Written in terms of goals, it stays valid for the list and for the calendar.