Unclear user stories can derail any sprint, even before starting. While they can be powerful tools that make sprint planning easier, the challenge is to have a consistent structure and maintain clarity across your workflow. When roles, goals, and acceptance criteria aren’t defined, even small tasks can become difficult to complete.
Wordlayouts’ user story templates provide a simple, structured solution. Suitable for any workflow —Scrum, Kanban, or hybrid—these templates are a great resource for any team. So organize your backlog and start sprint planning with templates that drive results.
A User Story is a simple way to describe what a user needs without making it into a lengthy requirement document. Used widely by Agile and Scrum teams, they represent the goal, the value, and who benefits from a product or feature.
Simply put, a user story is a description of a feature told from the perspective of any person who wants that feature. Typically, the customer's or system user's perspective will be used to make sure the developer team understands exactly what needs to be developed.
The purpose of user stories is to highlight how the end user would use a feature to accomplish their goal. They focus on user needs rather than technical specifics, which is why they are called "user" stories.
User stories follow a standard template:
As a (type of user), I want (some goal) so that (some reason).
This may appear very simple at first sight. But this deliberate simplicity makes it easy to understand for everyone and adds flexibility. With such a simple format, stories can be easily tweaked or replaced to support planning when priorities shift or new ideas come up.
Another important aspect is that user stories are not written only by the product owner. On a well-functioning team, stories can come from developers, designers, QA, product owners, and anyone else close to the work. A simple structure helps everyone stay aligned.
A user story is not written at the start of a project. They are written throughout an Agile project. User needs, major features, and priorities are defined at the start of the project or release, which is called an Epic. But epics are larger bodies of work and cannot be built right away. Over the course of the project, these larger pieces are broken down into multiple smaller user stories that can be estimated, planned, and completed more efficiently.
Some larger stories can be split into smaller parts, and individual acceptance criteria can be added to clearly explain to the developers and testers when they can be considered complete.
In this collection of user story templates, there are four formats: Simple, Thematic, Epic, and SAFe. Each template serves a different purpose and stage in Agile development, making it easier for teams and product managers to capture requirements clearly and consistently.
Example: As a user, I want to reset my password so that I can regain access to my account.
Example: As a shopper, I want to filter products by category and price so that I can find what I need faster.
Example: As a user, I can manage my entire account settings so that I can control my personal information and preferences.
Example: As a release train engineer, I want to track dependencies across teams so that all teams deliver on schedule.
With these editable templates, you can save time and focus on delivering value. Whether it's a quick task or a multi-team project, the templates in this collection will guide you at every stage of development.
Browse the collection and choose the right user story template for your next Scrum project right away!
These templates are available in Word, Google Docs, and ODT formats, so you can use them in the environment that works best for your team.
Yes, all templates are fully editable. You can adjust the fields, structure, or examples to the team’s process, product, or company standards. Plus, if you use any specific terminology, you can easily adapt wording, labels, and structure in these templates.
Yes. If you’re using Google Docs, multiple users can edit in real time. Word and ODT files can also be shared and updated collaboratively via your team’s preferred platform.
