# Let's make some user stories **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Tags:** user-story, documentation\ **Created:** [12 January 2023 04:41 UTC](https://forum.access-hive.org.au/t/lets-make-some-user-stories/314 "2023-01-12T04:41:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aidan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.access-hive.org.au/aidan/32/42_2.png) [@Aidan](https://forum.access-hive.org.au/u/Aidan)\ **Post date:** [12 January 2023 04:41 UTC](https://forum.access-hive.org.au/t/lets-make-some-user-stories/314/1 "2023-01-12T04:41:08Z")
# What is a user story? User story has a particular meaning in software development: > **[User story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story)** > > In software development and product management, a user story is an informal, natural language description of features of a software system. They are written from the perspective of an end user or user of a system, and may be recorded on index cards, Post-it notes, or digitally in specific management software. Depending on the product, user stories may be written by different stakeholders like client, user, manager, or development team. > User stories are a type of boundary object. They facilitat... but there is no reason to restrict yourself to those limited definitions. A user story is a way to describe and capture a workflow, a process, that you as a scientist might do daily, or weekly or more rarely. This is an example of a user story in the context of climate modelling: > [@How do I start a new perturbation experiment?](https://forum.access-hive.org.au/t/how-do-i-start-a-new-perturbation-experiment/262): > > How do I start a new perturbation experiment? User story As a new user I want to be able to start a new perturbation experiment from an existing ACCESS-OM2 control run. How do I identify which control run to choose? Which experiment do I clone? How do I know where to branch my experiment? How do I determine which restart files to use for my chosen branch point? Where can I find those restart files on disk? How do I configure payu to use the correct restart files? How do I know I’ve done things… # Why do this? Writing down your user story can help you understand it better. Sharing it on a forum like this then allows colleagues to recognise when this corresponds to their user story. Then you have a shared basis for collaboration, where you can help each other to improve your workflows. User stories describe a workflow or process that can be used as a basis for new users to copy and adapt. User stories are also helpful for ACCESS-NRI as a basis for targeting improvements in documentation, tools, processes, or model code to improve the productivity of anyone who has a similar user story or workflow. This helps **you** and your colleagues. User stories are essential because **you** are the subject matter experts with the experience in your field. This is particularly important as many staff at ACCESS-NRI are not subject matter experts, and so we need your help to make better products for you. # A living document A user story can be constantly improved, to reflect improvements, or to add features or processes that are new or that might have been omitted originally. To facilitate this it is best to [make a user story a wiki post](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-is-a-wiki-post/30801) so that it can be constantly updated. ACCESS-NRI would like to use user-stories as qualitative measures of impact and improvement for the community. In many cases what we might do can’t be well measured in metrics, but the community will “just know” it is a lot easier than it used to be. User stories are a way to capture this improvement, by documenting the improvement in the workflow for a particular user story. This helps demonstrate the value ACCESS-NRI brings to you, the community, to the bodies that fund us.