Question

So if a user story is a something nebulous like:

As a sales rep, I would like to capture the contact information so that I can follow up later on.

I’m not even sure if that’s a valid user story but I’m sure it’s close enough.

Then there are details/tasks for implementing that user story.
And I’m sure “The sales rep should be able to tab from one textbox to another.” is one of the requirements. How do we capture/track this? Is this part of the user story or is it something that’s to be considered separately?

Answer 1

A user story captures the essence of a feature, not the details, a story is a support for the discussion.

So, to answer your question, details are transmitted orally during a discussion, because face to face discussion is the most effective communication media. If you feel the need, details can be captured as notes on the back of the card (if you are using cards) or… in a “notes” field if you are using an electronic tool. Actually, I usually use a “how to demo” field too to capture a high-level description of how this story will be demonstrated at the sprint demo and use very brief “notes” for any other info, clarifications, references to other sources of info, etc (credits to Henrik Kniberg’s famous Index card generator). If find this very handy, especially when using executable specifications.

PS: your story is perfectly valid and its a good practice to include the benefits in your template (“As a role, I want action so that benefits“).