Spinning a Good Yarn: User Stories as a Common Thread in Software Development

Abstract:

In agile software processes, such as Extreme Programming (XP), units of work are expressed as 'User Stories.' These are casual descriptions of how a user would use the software system in a story format. They are less formal and contain less information than use cases and scenarios, but are a simple and surprisingly effective means for eliciting feature requests from customers, for tracking units of work, and ensuring software quality. Recently, our research group has been investigating novel ways to leverage User Stories in software development.

One project is STITCH, an Eclipse plug-in to support requirements traceability and program comprehension by linking User Stories with source code. A second project examines the role of storytelling and narrative structure in User Stories to identify where everyday folk knowledge about stories can be used to facilitate requirements elicitation.

Bio:

Susan Elliott Sim is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine and a member of the Institute for Software Research. Her main area of research is program comprehension, in particular, tools and techniques that help software developers understand source code. Other research interests include research methodology, software engineering expertise, and software process for small business. Sim holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Toronto and she was program co-chair for the Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE) 2005 and 2006.