Use CasesMethod
A use case is a written description of how users will perform tasks with your product or on your website. It outlines, from a user’s point of view, a system’s behavior as it responds to a request. Each use case is represented as a sequence of simple steps, beginning with a user's goal and ending when that goal is fulfilled.
Use cases help explain how the system should behave and help teams brainstorm what could go wrong. They also provide a list of goals which can be used to establish the cost and required complexity of the system. Project teams can then negotiate which functions become requirements and are subsequently built.
Preparation
Use Cases is often more effective when it is informed by these complementary methods.
Contextual Interviewing
Observation of users performing tasks in their own environment
Task Analysis
Observe users in action to understand how they perform tasks to achieve goals
Stakeholder Interviewing
Understanding the perspective and influence of those invested in a project's success
User Interviewing
Understand the tasks and motivations of the user group for whom you are designing
Steps
- Identify who is going to be using the website.
- Pick one of those users.
- Define what that user wants to do on the site. Each thing the use does on the site becomes a use case.
- For each use case, decide on the normal course of events when that user is using the site.
- Describe the basic course in the description for the use case. Describe it in terms of what the user does and what the system does in response that the user should be aware of.
- When the basic course is described, consider alternate courses of events and add those to "extend" the use case.
- Look for commonalities among the use cases. Extract these and note them as common course use cases.
- Repeat the steps 2 through 7 for all other users.
Outcomes
Use Cases typically produces insight and solutions focused on these areas:
Success Metrics
Clearly defined measures of success for a project or product.
