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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?
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").
User stories should be short statements in 1 to 3 sentences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story
I want to be able to tab from one textbox to another is another user story.
You can track these things in a tool like www.rallydev.com, or just any type of task tracking tool (SharePoint, Excel even ... etc.).
Next thing you do is prioritize.
Just taking a rough stab...
As a sales rep,
I want all data entry and navigation to be accomplished using the keyboard
so that I don't have to take my hands off the keyboard
(and so that we comply with accessibility guidelines).
Or
As a business,
We want all our products to be fully usable using only keyboard input
So that we can sell to customers who require accessible software.
The first part belongs to a "business requirements" document (usually written by a business analyst). The first generations of this document are quite high level, but the final versions (several iterations later) are pretty detailed.
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/6089
The second part (about tabbing) is part of another document - "UX spec" (shows all screens and describes user interaction). This one is usually written by a different person/team (Product or UX team).
http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined-2
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/05/sharing-ownership-of-ux.php
Yes, that is problem we also have a lot. On the one hand, user stories need to be conscise, on the other hand all the nitty gritty details must be put somewhere.
We use XPlanner, and we solve this by putting the short description into the text body of the user story. Then we use XPlanners "notes" feature (arbitrary text or files that can be attached to a user story) for the details.
That way we can add as much information as necessary to a user story, without cluttering up the user story text itself. You can also refer to external documentation, if you don't want to have everything in XPlanner.
This approach works quite well for us.
Agree with others, that this is viable story, but capture the (derived) requirements may be better captured elsewhere.
Software Developers and Business types are familiar with different terminology some what may simple to understand by one (data structures) may mean nothing to another. The User Stories is a tool or a means by which business user can convey a message as a starting point which is expanded on (with tests, details, etc).
Oral Communication can be effective, but the effectiveness is dependent on the receivers ability to hear and comprehend the meaning of the message. This is where oral communication can fail. Different types of communication offerring more or less formal forms of communication. Vocal communication is an "informal form of communication" which risks the message being misheard, misinterpretted, and misunderstanding. Just like the game played as a child, where one child whispers a message to another child, who tells another, until all have heard it...When the last child tells the message to the group it usually has been misinterpreted then misinterpretted again, causing a degraded message.
Related
I am following verification and validation threads and I think an example might be helpful. I am not an experienced developer so I would like to know whether this would be correct:
User equirement: I want to be save my friend's name, address and phone number to the system
Software Requirement specification: User wants to be able to enter and save a name, address, phone number.
Technical analysis: web UI for data entering. Data will be saved into the SQL DB.
Detailed design: UI elements: 3 fields of a string type, 1 button, object XYZ, dbConnection....
Code: (actual code of UI, db scripts)
Is it like that? Could anyone correct or add what I am missing here?
As for verification, each phase can be verified against requirement (traceability). As for validation, the functional code should work as expected (save three attributes).
While this is some what theoretically true (I have to say this), it is completely wrong in all practical and real world scenarios.
Capture user needs and Why he wants to do a certain thing. This allows you to build just the software that user wants, eliminate waste that come as part of made-up requirements, technical requirements, nice to haves etc.
So instead of,
I want to be save my friend's name, address and phone number to the system...
I'd rather like to have the below which emphasizes Why? the real need of the user
I want to send a greeting card to my friend on his birthday.
Now, I know I just need his name and address. Since this is for future I also want to store this information. So what I write next is a set of acceptance criteria to meet the above customer needs. If I can capture these as a set of executable specifications then it is even better as those are verifiable programmatically.
Ignore everything else. Traceability is unnecessary overhead. We need it if we are building software based on fabricated requirements.
Read the below
Agile Manifesto
ATDD and BDD
Impact Mapping
I've never seen a good way to trace code to requirements outside a single sprint/time box. And also, you're missing testers from your list! Unless your testers are also your business analysts (I my experience professional testers find a lot of the requirements inconsistencies - aka bugs).
I think the best approach is to have everyone as involved as possible, so you can cross reference each person expectations often. If everyone works together, you don't need to implement a cargo-cult process where batches of information are transferred down stream in one way.
The simplest tool have traceability is your VCS, where each commit includes the ID of the user story/use case that the commit is related to.
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I have more of a "what-would-you-do" question than an actual coding question.
It relates to a project I am currently working on. In this project,
we are tasked with combining several marketplace APIs into one interface. Each
API has its own unique way of categorizing products. The top-level
parent categories for all the APIs we are looking at are more-or-less
the same with some variations. But, the subcategories are wildly
different.
For example, one API requires long bread-crumb trails
to select a category, such as: Sports > Ball Sports > New England >
Football > Active Teams > Patriots > Memorabilia. While another API has two-level
categorization: Sports > Patriots Memorabilia. In many cases, there are sub-categories
that don't relate whatsoever to the subcategories of other APIs.
So, the question is - what is the best approach to take when designing
the interface? We are currently wrestling between two possibilities:
1) Design a custom category UI on the client and then build logic into
the server that is able to sort through the needs of the various APIs
based on user-selected choices.
2) Create the UI in such a way that the user has to walk through the
necessary steps for each individual API. Depending on user settings, this means that
he may need to fill out API - specific information 5,6,10, or more
times.
While I am told that option number one is a real programming nightmare (the
example I am given is changing API data fields) I feel strongly that option number two will piss off customers.
Any ideas out there??
This a very hard problem. If you search for "ontology product classification" you'll find many research papers and discussions on the topic. If one was simply a more detailed version of the other it would be quite feasible, but your description implies that isn't the case, and thus you'll need to construct your own classification scheme and map the others onto it.
Do you have a common key (UPC code? or other) that will allow you to verify your mapping between the different product categories? If so, you might be able to construct your own categorization scheme and then map the others onto it with some degree of success.
Clearly the first option is the best for the consumer but it could be very hard and very time consuming to construct such a mapping and it will need constant updates.
One approach would be to construct a simpler hierarchy than any of the ones provided. A simpler hierarchy will make the [mostly manual] effort of mapping categories into your hierarchy much easier as most will simply be inclusions. This might make the user experience worse but if you add great search capabilities and great "related products" / "people who bought this also bought this" tools around the product browsing experience you can probably make up for the lack of hierarchy.
Number One isn't that bad of a nightmare. Your users' experience is the number one priority; never forget that. If the user has an easier time navigating a shorter route, then give them that opportunity. Also, I would wrap the API with some abstraction so my code doesn't know about the API at all and only knows about the abstraction layer. This way I can change APIs and leave most of my code alone, only changing the abstraction layer.
Use a session to pass data from page to page and a factory to create the page's state on entry based on the session data; this will strengthen the context between page, state, and user data.
Keep first level objects (the ones the page directly talks to) in context to the page; this will help when diagnosing problems.
Most importantly, create a series of tests for your abstraction layer that test every object, function, and input output pair to make sure your application is rock solid.
You have to provide to your clients a consistent not changing interface.
I would like to see an example of the two different approaches you have in mind.
API.find( PRODUCT, CATEGORIES_LIST )
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I am from an XP background. I know the process very well and have solid working experience with it. I have found it to be the best way to develop software.
I find myself in the position of a process doctor of sorts and this creates much self examination and revaluation of my own understandings.
A very common thing I hear is that some work can’t be made into stories. I personally don’t believe this. The excuses include
Its too big (The developer will have nothing to show until the end of 5 weeks).
it’s a complicated algorithm or abstract concept (will take 5 weeks to write and nothing to show).
This question is to get hints, tips or suggestions.
I am looking for hints, tips, and suggestions as to how to address these and similar perceived problems (and more if you can think of them).
I will mark the answer that has the most information on how to get around users/developers who wont write stories and address their many excuses as to why not (I have only listed a few and there are many more).
Here are a few resources that I've collected over time and that might help:
Patterns for Splitting User Stories
Story Weight Reduction Toolkit
Twenty Ways to Split Stories
Ways to split user stories
Too big or too complicated, there is always a way to put a story on diet (maybe you won't obtain the final result in one iteration but this doesn't mean you can't and, well, there will be more than one iteration).
So basically, your question is "What can I do if people claim a task is too big for a user story, and can't be split up.
In my experience, almost any problem can be split up. Ask them if they can implement a simplified version, leave out advanced features, maybe even use default values in some places; basically anything to produce something that gives meaningful (i.e. testable) results within one iteration.
Remember: The point of an iteration is not to deliver complete functionality, but just useful and testable functionality.
This splitting can be difficult, but it forces you to consider what you really need first, which is very valuable. The developers may bitch about it (I often do myself :-)), but it's really necessary. Breaking down big tasks into manageable user stories is at the very heart of all agile methods.
That said, if the task really, really, really cannot be broken down (think complex mathematical algorithm in a research setting, that takes weeks to even understand the basics of), then your iteration is too short. The iteration needs to be long enough to produce meaningful results. And if most of your problems are so hard that they take 2-3 months to get anything done, then that's your iteration length. But I've never seen a project where that was really the case...
Usually when you get "it's too big", what they are really saying is "I only have a vague idea how this should work". You need to work with them to better define it until it becomes possible to split it into logical parts that can be more easily managed.
users/developers who wont write stories
Users aren't supposed to write user stories. They aren't supposed to tell you user stories. You can expect them to talk about how they work, the problems that bother them and what they would like to have to facilitate their everyday work.
You, in your turn, is supposed to listen to them and take notes. If they allow, use a tape recorder or a camera. Then you bring the collected information back when you replay it and identify what you call user stories. You discuss them with the team and when you have agreement you have use cases to target in your development.
What role developers play, is up to you. If they just coders, they don't take part in the process.
If they in part act as consultants, then they help define user stories.
The "algorithmic specification" problem is common.
Many people prefer to write code and don't really care who the user is or what they do.
I try to get them to focus by asking these questions.
What action can the person take? What could they possibly do with the information? If they have some responsibility, they can take action to deny, approve, hold, reject, reprocess, stop, start, something. If the user can't take any action, you need to ask if they're really stake-holders.
What decision do they have to make? How do the decide which action (if any) to take? We can't automate that decision -- that's why people are in the loop.
What information does this person need to make the decision to take action.
Information-Decision-Action.
We only write software to prepare information for people to make decisions so they can take action.
If that's not the focus, then the stories get out of control.
Its basically the duty and responsibility of the product owner. And there can be any requirements/task that cannot be split into User Stories. I found many such discussions on SCrum Master Forums
If development team claims that the story is too big and can not fit within the sprint.. take their feedback and try to split the story with must have and nice to have tasks and try to split it based on that.
check this flowchart.. can be a help: http://www.agileforall.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Story-Splitting-Flowchart.pdf
Are use cases just multiple user stories??
What are the benefits of using user stories over use cases.. and vice-versa... When to use one over other...
Does all agile methodologies uses user stories??
Actually, the original use cases (see Jacobson's OOSE) were pretty lightweight, much as user stories are now. Over time, they evolved until a common format for "use cases" now is a complicated document with inputs, outputs, inheritance, uses relationships, pseudocode, etc. Programmers, in general, try to convert everything into programming.
In any case, the attempt to defined what distinguishes a "use case" from a "user story" fro a "scenario" is pretty futile, as it's hard to find two authorities who agree.\
Personally, I find the pattern "[Actor] [verbs] [noun] to get [business value]" helpful. If it gets over about a paragraph of text, it may be too big.
When it comes down to it "agile" is just a label, and people disagree over exactly what it means. Similarly people call very different things "use cases."
In my experience the primary difference between the two is that a user story is focused on the user, and is usually shorter and less formal - ideally, it should easily fit on a postcard. It probably doesn't give details of error handling etc.
Use cases can be much more formal (although some people write them informally too) - they focus on every interaction with the system, and may well go into more detail about several different systems/actors/etc within the same use case.
That's just my experience though - chances are everyone will have used these tools in different ways. I wouldn't get too hung up about labels - just use what works for your project.
Use cases aren't compilations of user stories.
User stories are generally much simpler than use cases. I think use cases try to cover absolutely everything to do with the behaviour of some aspect of the system. That is, all behaviours, all error paths and all exception handling.
The recommended template for a user is:
As a (role) I want (something) so that (benefit)
(Thanks Mike Cohn for providing this simple template)
Descriptions of behaviour expressed like this are more agile.
This sort of template lets you describe behaviour using different levels of detail. For example:
for those stories being implemented in a much later sprint, you can describe behaviour in a high level sort of way, e.g. as an ops team member I want to monitor the system remotely so that I can determine system health while on the road.
for those stories being implemented in the next sprint, you can describe behaviour is a slightly more detailed way, e.g. as an ops team member I want to have a dedicated ops only login so that I can check system health.
for those stories being implemented in the current sprint, you can describe behaviour in a highly detailed way, e.g. as an ops team member I want to have a web interface so that I can check current status of the ingest ftp server.
IMHO Use cases are much more carved in stone! And hence can be a problem to update after the initial version.
HTH
cheers,
Rob
In one word, no.
Use Cases are typically detailed specifications laying out how some particular piece of functionality is going to work, or how a specific user is going to utilize the system. It typically is in the voice of a specific user (or Actor) and is fairly self-contained.
A user story on the other hand is "an invitation for discussion". It is typically one or two sentences. Here is one good resource for that. And Mike Cohn's User Stories Applied is well worth it.
The typical syntax is "As a <user> I need <functionality> to achieve <business value>", or "To achieve <business value> as a <user> I need <functionality>" which drives home the value of the story.
User stories are not meant to be stand-alone, but meant to invite discussion of the story between the developer and the customer (or customer proxy).
You can think of a usecase as a user story, but not the other way around. A usecase will cover multiple "endings" to the story, special requirements (e.g. form fields must be entered in format xyz, and show error message 123 if the user enters a field in the wrong format). Also, a usecase can include additional references to external documents, such as security guidelines.
User Stories is a tool used in Agile development to make sure you create the product your user really needs.
It describes rather why you should make this or that feature instead of HOW or WHAT feature.
From my personal experience, it's a great way to balance the client's and developer's vision to create a better product.
Unlike US aUse Case focuses on WHO uses your product. Here is the difference.
I'd say there is no other such instrument for an Agile developer as User Stories. If you want to learn how to write them successfully, check out this post.
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How can our team gather requirements from our "Product Owner" in as low friction yet useable of a way as possible?
Now here's the guidelines- No posts that it can't be done or that the business needs to make a decision that it cares about quality, yada yada. The product I work for is a small group that has been successful for years. I just want to help them step it up a notch.
Basically, I'm on a 6 or 7 person team with one Product Owner. She does a great job but is juggling a few different roles (as I believe is common on extremely small teams). Usually requirements are given at sporadic times (email convos, face to face discussions, meetings, etc). They are never entered into a system and sometimes this results in features missing a release or the release getting pushed back since everyone forgot about the necessary feature.
If you're in a similar situation but you found a way to overcome this, I'd love to hear it. I'm happy to write code to help ease this situation but it can't be a web site that the Product Owner has to go to in order to get anything done. She is extremely busy and we need some way of working together as a team in order to gather these requirements.
I'm currently thinking of something like this: Developers and team members gather requirements discussed in face to face meetings and write some quick notes on the features discussed on a wiki page. Product owner is notified whenever these pages are updated and it then becomes her responsibility to ensure accuracy.
Pros: We'll have some record of the features. Cons: The developers are taking responsibility for something that they ordinarily wouldn't. I'm okay with that here. I think in this situation it's teamwork.
Of course once we do this, then we're going to see that the product owner probably doesn't have enough time to ensure feature accuracy. Ultimately she is overburdened and I think this will help showcase that fact, but I just need to be able to draw attention to that first.
So any suggestions?
P.S. her time is extremely limited so it is considered unreasonable to expect her to need to type in the requirements after discussion. She only has time to discuss them once and move on.
Although the concept of "product owner" is a littl ambiguous to me, I think I am working in very similar circumstances: the customer is extremely buzy and always is a bottleneck in developing requirements.
On the surface, what we try to do in this situation is quite obvious and seemingly simple: we try to make sure that the customer is involved in "read-only / talk-only" mode. No writing. Minimum reading. Mostly talking.
The devil, of course, is in details. So, here are some specifics about our process (in no particular order):
We often start from recording problem statements, which are the ultimate sources of requirements. In fact, sometimes a problem statement is all that we record initially, just to make sure it does not get lost.
NB: It is important to distinguish problem statements from requirements. Although a problem statement sometimes clearly implies some requirement, in general a single problem statement may yield a whole bunch of requirements (each having its own severity and priority); moreover, sometimes a given requirement my define a solution (usually just a partial one) to multiple problems.
One of the main reasons of recording problem statements (and this is very relevant to your question!) is that semantically they are somewhat "closer to the customer's skin" and more stable than requirements derived from them. I believe those problem statements make it much easier and quicker to put the customer into proper context whenever he has time to provide feedback to the development team.
We do record all the requirements (and back-track them to problem statements), regardless of when are we going to implement them. Priorities govern the order in which requirements get implemented. Of course, they also govern the order in which customer reviews unfinished requirements.
NB: A single fat document containing all requirements is an absolute no-no! All the requirements are placed in "problem tracking database", along with bug reports. (A bug is just a special case of a problem in our book.)
We always try to do our best to minimize the number of iterations necessary to "finalize" each requirement (or a group of related requirements). Ideally, a customer should have to review a requirement only once.
Whenever the first review turns out to be insufficient (happens all the time), and the requirement in question is complex enough to require a lot of text and/or illustrations, we make sure that the customer does not have to re-read everything from scratch. All the important changes/additions/deletions since the previous reviwed version are highlighted.
While a problem or requirement remains in an unfinished state, all the open issues (mostly questions to customer) are embedded into the document and highlighted. As a result, whenever the customer has time to review requirements, he does not have to call a meeting and solicit questions from the team; instead the customer can open any unfinished document first, see what exactly is expected from him, and then decide what's the best way and time (for him) to address any of the open issues. Sometimes the customer chooses to write a email or add a comment directly to the problem document.
We try our best to establish and maintain official domain vocabulary (even if it gets scattered across the documentation). Most importantly, we practically force the customer to stick to that vocabulary.
NB: This is one of the most difficult parts of the process, and customer tries to "rebel" from time to time. However, at the end of the day everybody agrees that it is the only way to make precious meetings with the customer as efficient as possible. If you ever attended one-hour meetings where 30 minutes were being spent just to get everybody on the same page (again), I'm sure you would appreciate having a vocabulary.
NB: Whenever possible, any changes in the official vocabulary get reflected in the very next release of the software.
Sometimes, a given problem can be solved in multiple ways, and the right choice is not obvious without consulting with the customer. It means that there will be a "menu of requirements" for the customer to pick from. We document such "menus", not just the finally chosen requirement.
This may seem controversial and look like an unnecessary overhead. However, this approach saves a lot of time whenever the customer (usually few weeks or months down the road) suddenly jumps in with a question like "why the heck did we do it this way and not that way?" Also, it is not such a big deal to hide "rejected branches" using proper organization/formatting of requirements documentation. Boring but doable. :-)
NB: When preparing "menus of requirements", it is very important not to overdo them. Too many choices or too many choice nesting levels - and the next review may require much more customer's time than really necessary. Needless to say that the time spent on elaborated branches may be totally wasted. Yes, it is difficult to find some balance here (it greatly depends on the always-in-a-hurry customer's ability to think two or more steps ahead and do it quickly). But, what can I say? If you really want to do your job well, I am sure that after some time you will find the right balance. :-)
Our customer is a very "visual" guy. Therefore, whenever we discuss any significant user interface elements, screen mockups (or even lightweight prototypes) often are extremely helpful. Real time savers sometimes!
NB: We do screen mockups exclusively for the customer, only in order to facilitate discussions. They may be used by developers too, but in no way do they substitute user interface specifications! More often than not, there are some very important UI details that get specified in writing (now - primarily for developers).
We are lucky enough to have a customer with a very technical background. So we do not hesitate to use UML diagrams as discussion aid. All kinds of UML diagrams - as long as they help customer to get into proper context quicker and stay there.
I am talking about requirements-level UML diagrams, of course. Not about implementation-level ones. I believe that even not very technical people can start digging requirements-level UML diagrams sooner or later; you just have to be patient and know what to put on a diagram.
Obviously, the cost of such process greatly depends on analytical and writing skills of the team, and of course on the tools that you have at your disposal. And I must admit that in our case this process appears to be quite expensive and slow. But, taking into account the very low rate of bugs and low rate of "vapor-features"... I think, in the long run, we get very good payback.
FWIW: According to Joel's nice classification of software products, this project is an "internal" one. So we can afford to be as agile as our customer can handle. :-)
"Developers and team members gather requirements discussed in face to face meetings and write some quick notes"
Start with that. If you aren't taking notes, just make one small change. Take Notes. Later, you might post them to a wiki or create a feature backlog or start using Scrum or bugzilla or something.
First, however, make small changes. Write stuff down sounds like something you're not doing, so just do that and see what improves and what you can do next. Be Agile. Work Incrementally.
You might want to be careful of the HiPPO in the room. The Highest Paid Person's Opinion is not always a good one. We've tended to focus more on providing great tools and support for developers. These things, done right, take some of the hassle out of development, so that it becomes faster and more fun. Developers are then more flexible in terms of their workload, and more amenable to late-breaking changes.
One-Click testing and deployment are a couple of good ones to start with; make sure every developer can run up their own software stack in a few seconds and try out ideas directly. Developers are then able to make revisions quickly or run down side paths they find interesting, and these paths are often the most successful. And by successful I mean measured success based on real metrics gathered right in the system and made readily available to all concerned. The owner is then able to set the metrics, which they probably care about, rather than the requirements, which they either don't care about or have no experience in defining.
Of course it depends on the owner and your particular situation, but we've found that metrics are easier to discuss than requirements, and that developers are pretty good at interpreting them too. A typical problem might be that customers seem to spend a long time filling their shopping carts but don't go on to checkout.
1) A marketing requirement might be to make the checkout button bigger and redder. 2) The CEO's requirement might be to take the customer straight to checkout, as the CEO only ever buys one item at a time anyway. 3) The UI designer's requirement might be to place a second checkout button at the top of the cart as well as the existing one at the bottom. 4) The developer's requirement might be some Web 2.0 AJAX widget that follows the mouse pointer around the screen. Who's right?
Who cares... the customer probably saw the ridiculous cost of delivery and ran away. But redefine the problem as a metric, instead of a requirement, and suddenly the developer becomes interested. The developer doesn't have to do 10 rounds with the CMO on what shade of red the button should be. He can play with his Web 2.0 thing all week, and then rush off the other 3 solutions on Monday morning. Each one gets deployed live for 48 hours and the cart-to-checkout rate gets measured and reported instantly. None of it makes any difference, but the developer got to do their job and the business shifts it's focus onto the crappy products they sell and the price they gauge on delivery.
Well, ok, so the example is contrived. There's a lot of work in there to make sure that the project is small, the team is experienced, hot deployment is simple, instant rollback is provided, and that everyone's on board. What we wanted to get to is a state where the developer's full potential is not wasted, so that's why they're involved not just from the start, but also in the success. Start out with an issue like the number of clicks during registration is too high, run it through a design committee, and we found that the number of clicks actually went up in the design specification. That was our experience anyway. But leave the developer some freedom to just reduce the number of clicks and you might actually end up with a patented solution, as we did. Not that the developer cares about patents, but it had merit - and no clicks!