User Stories vs. Product Requirements
Let’s talk about the difference between user stories and product requirements.
Product requirements define the value and the purpose of a feature from the product’s standpoint.
User stories define the value and the purpose of a feature from the user’s standpoint.
There is not much of a difference: They are both defining what a product should do but from different perspectives.
Product requirements are mostly associated with the waterfall development methodology. In waterfall, requirements are defined in the beginning of the project and give a detailed description of what will be developed. In Agile development methodology, where companies use a more flexible and adaptive approach, requirements are continually added to the backlog in the shape of user stories and prioritized based on importance.
If you are a product manager who is developing a reminder app, and you want to write a product requirement, then you will have something like this:
PR: The reminder app should be integrated with geolocation services.
From the user’s perspective, it would go like this:
US: As an app user, I want to get a reminder once I arrive/leave a specific location.
A user story captures who the user is, what they want and why. It looks like this:
Even though the goals of user stories and product requirements are always the same (building a product customers love), user stories are more powerful, as they ensure your focus is on the customer’s experience and benefit.
If whatever you are building has an immediate benefit to your end users, it’s better to write user stories, so you can capture what the user wants and why.
