Scenarios
Scenarios describe the stories and context behind why a specific user or user group comes to your site. They note the goals and questions to be achieved and sometimes define the possibilities of how the user(s) can achieve them on the site.
href="https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/scenarios.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scenarios describe the stories and context behind why a specific user or user group comes to your site. They note the goals and questions to be achieved and sometimes define the possibilities of how the user(s) can achieve them on the site.
- A narrative exploring the future use of a product from a user’s point of view
- A scenario is a believable narrative, usually set in the future, of a person’s experience as he or she engages with a product or a service.
- By making design ideas explicit and concrete, the design team can empathetically envision the future ways in which a product is likely to be used.
- The scenario should focus efforts on building culturally meaningful artifacts that augment actual human activity, rather than designing toward technical requirements.
- Scenarios bring personas to life. Both deliverables therefore reinforce the value of the other.
- Scenarios should range from baseline, status quo to high-stress situations with less-than-optimal conditions.
- Scenarios can be written to follow a traditional story arc, with a trigger event, scene, and preconditions, and task resolution with technology that assists and delights.
Scenario Description Swimlanes
A holistic visualization of the activities of multiple actors in a flow of events
- It can benefit any project where several processes or actors have to come together to shape the outcome of the same flow of events.
- Multiple scenario description swimlanes should be created from user research, each focused on its own specific story with the following elements:
- Storyboard lane: Captures the events in a user story using comics, photographs, illustrations, or sketches.
- User Experience lane: This is a flowchart depicting the story with more detail and insight into the process of the user experience.
- Business Process lane: This is the business logic providing the required processes that facilitates the steps of the user experience.
- Tools and Systems lane: Back-end technology that is involved to support user actions and business goals.
- The method visually connects an overarching user story with problems being solved at both a macro perspective and detailed micro view.