Flutter App: PotatoVerse — Scenarios

Scenarios are a powerful tool which can be used to develop applications with good user experience. As a developer, creating a great user experience (herein referred to as UX) is essential for the success of an application. And one way to ensure this good UX requirement is met, is by using scenarios during the initial research and development phase.

Image Source

UX scenarios are hypothetical brief, stories that describe how users might interact with your application. They can help in identifying potential issues and opportunities for improvement. Additionally, from these stories, the design team is able to come up with contextual design solutions for the application.

Ideally, these scenarios are based on user personas ( fictional characters that represent different types of users). So this step should come after the personas have been identified and modelled. We created the personas for our potato application in this article in our #PotatoVerse series.

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of UX scenarios and how to create them. We’ll also provide detailed scenarios for our two different user personas who love potatoes.

Key benefits of user scenarios

1. User-centric design: User scenarios help designers and developers to better understand the users and their goals, motivations and pain points. With those in mind, they are able to ensure the final products meet the users’ needs.
2. Context: As mentioned above, scenarios allow designers to familiarise themselves with the context in which users would interact with the product. With this context, they are able to design interfaces and interactions that are aligned with the actual usage of the application.
3. Identify potential issues and solutions: By seeing how users might interact with the application, designers and developers can be able to identify potential issues, challenges and opportunities for improvement early in the process. This proactive approach helps in addressing problems and generating solutions before they become pertinent.
4. Testing: Scenarios can provide a basis for usability and QA testing. Designers and QA testers can use the scenarios created as test cases to evaluate how well the product meets user expectations and objectives.

Creating a user scenario — components

A user scenario usually includes several key components which provide a detailed narrative of the user’s interaction with the application. Let’s look at these elements using examples with our first persona — Ms. Viyazi, Jane.

1. Actor: When writing a scenario, it’s best to use a specific persona as the actor carrying out the scenario. Introduce the user persona and provide a brief description/overview of them. Include details such as name, age, occupation, and any relevant personality traits or characteristics.
   Persona: Viyazi Jane
   Age: 27
   Occupation: Marketing manager
   Characteristics: Tech-savvy, busy, foodie, experimental.
2. Context: Describe the setting in which the user finds themselves. This can be the situation and steps your user will take to arrive at the product. It sets the stage for the scenario and helps in understanding the user’s motivations and goals.
   Ms. Viyazi wants to stay indoors this weekend. The weather is gloomy and she’s also on a tight budget this month.
3. Goals or objectives: State clearly what the user aims to achieve when they interact with the application. What is the end game? This is the primary goal the scenario will revolve around.
   Instead of ordering from her favourite restaurants as usual, Ms. Viyazi’s wants to experiment with some of the ingredients she already has at home to recreate some popular meals she’s tasted before.
4. Trigger or problem: Identify the event that will trigger the user to reach for the application and engage with it. This could be a specific need, an obstacle they encounter or an opportunity.
   Ms. Viyazi checks her pantry for available ingredients. She only potatoes, carrots and onions and she is unsure of the meals she can put together with them.
5. User interaction: Identify the specific action or steps the user takes to achieve their goal. Show how the user navigates through the application to meet their objective.
   She logs into the PotatoVerse application to retrieve easy recipes. She filters the results using some of the ingredients she has and then settles on one recipe that is easy to prepare and requires minimal effort.
6. User emotions: Try to capture the user’s emotions or feelings throughout the scenario. E.g., if the user is frustrated, satisfied or confused.
   Ms. Viyazi is delighted and surprised at how easy it was to search through the application and settle on a recipe.
7. Outcome: Finalise the user scenario by describing the outcome of the process. That is whether the user was successful in achieving their objective and how they feel about the experience.
   Viyazi completes preparing the meal. Satisfied with how the dish came out, how easy it was to prepare it and how amazing it tastes, she proceeds to take a photo of her meal and post it on social media for all her followers to see. She even adds the recipe to her favourites list!

Part 3 — User Scenarios

Ms. Viyazi User Scenario

Mr. Waaru User Scenario

A challenge with writing user scenarios is knowing how much detail to provide. It is important that you get specific, but don’t add too many details that will distract from the narrative you are communicating.

After creating the user scenarios, share them with your stakeholders request feedback. Stakeholders can provide valuable input that can be used in refining and modifying scenarios. The final version of the scenarios can then be used to prioritise the features for the application and to build the prototypes.

In our next article in this series, we’ll be diving into these features and prioritising them as per the needs of our personas. So be on the lookout for that post.

“Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.”
— Douglas Adams

I hope you’ve found this article interesting. (Also, how funny — and true is this quote 😂)

Gracias por leer ❤

Check out the previous articles on this project.

PotatoVerse — Ideation

Flutter App: PotatoVerse — Personas

References:
1. https://www.designorate.com/guide-ux-research-scenarios/
2. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/scenario-mapping-personas
3. https://blog.uxtweak.com/user-scenario/
4. https://www.justinmind.com/blog/how-to-design-user-scenarios/