Taking user story mapping further with the Kano Model
Defining what quality means for user stories
User story mapping is a wonderful exercise to start off the discovery of a new product. It can be used for turning user journeys into a set of user stories (ie. functional “chunks”) which can then be prioritised and populate a backlog.
The problem with story mapping, is that it tends to end up with only functional requirements. It does not help teams define what “good enough” looks like in terms of product quality.
My framework “Kano Mapping” helps teams articulate and create a shared understanding of quality for a whole journey. It can be used as an extension of user story mapping to go deeper into the the qualitative requirements of user stories.
Let’s take a look.
Introducing Kano Mapping
The Kano Model is a system which I’ve drawn from. Its used to prioritise features according to three types of customer expectation: functional, performance and emotional.
- 👉🏻Don’t know the Kano Model? Take a closer look
I have extended the idea of user story mapping by adding the Kano Model. The illustration below shows how it works.
For each user story, try to describe the qualities which would make it a bad, good or a great experience. The categories are up to you, but I’d consider using the kano model.
Job step — What does the user want to do?
Dysfunctional — What would make this experience painful?
Functional — What would make this experience satisfactory?
Performant — What would make this experience pleasing and effortless?
Attractive — What would make this experience delightful and differentiated?
Writing qualitative requirements from the user perspective can be helpful, as it keeps things consistent and focused on user needs.
Use cases
Your resulting “Kano Map” can be used to:
- Dig deeper into user stories and ideate higher value solutions.
- Plan-in quality at the start of a project, and then used as a checklist to evaluate product quality throughout development.
- Be used as a decision log to keep track of why compromises in quality are made, and when they will be fixed.
Used correctly, a Kano Map can transform subjective opinions about quality into a single source of truth. If you’re accustomed to turning user stories into JIRA cards, then why not add your kano qualities as your “definition of done”?
Kano Maps: A living quality backlog
User story mapping is an extremely valuable exercise to build a shared understanding in cross-functional teams. Kano mapping takes this further and helps teams delve into what “great looks like” for every step of the journey.
