Concerning those non-functional requirements, I second the idea of creating general tests for each story. And the place-to-go for these requirements is, IMHO, the Definition of Done which should be unique for all user stories.

Sorry for the delay in responding to your comment – busy times!

First of all, I would say that most of your examples are not non-functional stories, they are absolutely functional and can therefore be included on the relevant stories.

The only exception I think is the one about evaluating conventions. I have to admit that early on in a project, there are a lot of general development things to get done such as setting up environments etc. I just accept this in the first Sprint or so, and don’t try to twist them into stories artificially. However I do expect the stories to be valuable to the user once the project gets into its step and we’re iterating through functionality.

Havng said that, I think I see what you’re getting at. I think you’re asking about functions that span multiple features, rather than non-functional requirements. I agree with you that these are a little awkward. Ideally each feature would still be incorporated on all user stories they are applicable for. You may also have a set of standard tests that are checked for all user stories, and features such as these could be included there.

Hope this helps,

Kelly.

Suggested typing; Ability to collapse information not required by the user (at user level); Evaluate available conventions to determine which we want to use for development of this system; Make lists easier to read by including grey/white row highlights, etc.; Always use pop-up calendars when a date is needed; Field type validation (numbers, alpha, etc.)

Thanks!
Sherry

Thanks for the feedback. I think I understand where you are going. Essentially, we should write the requirement completely from the user perspective rather than describing background (i.e. system) behavior in terms of a “system” user. That helps a lot. Thanks.

- Robert

Many thanks for your comment, your feedback is much appreciated!

I’m not sure the example you give is really a non-functional requirement?

I think it’s actually a feature and you could think about re-wording it from a user’s perspective?

Why would your users want you to display images from FlickR?

I don’t know much about the feature so I can’t really write a good example for you. But I guess it would be something along the lines of: As a user, I want to see images from FlickR on my profile, so I can…

Regards
Kelly.