The following items are usually called 'user stories':
- A well-structured sentence like 'as a blog author I want to be able to upload images in order to impress my readers'
- A card containing a well-structured sentence (like the above), enriched with user acceptance criteria and constraints
- The above card, plus some collaboration
- All of the above and additionally an estimate and a priority (aka backlog item)
The common denominator is that the usual scheme...
As a {role} i want to {ability} [in order to {purpose}]....is called a user story.
A user story's scope is always to define some functional requirement, in some cases bounded by non-functional constraints. This is a major weakness in all agile processes, as the non-functional requirements - which drive the architecture and the system's cost - don't get enough consideration.
A user story card is a composition of...
- A story (functional requirement, 'as a ... i want to ... in order to ...)
- One or more user acceptance criteria
- One or more constraints (non-functional requirements)
