Why Every Product Team Needs Experience Narratives

Have you ever been in a product meeting where everyone agrees on the requirements but still imagines something completely different?

That’s the trap. Requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria... They’re all essential, yet they don’t always create a shared picture of what the experience should actually feel like.

That’s why I use experience narratives.

An experience narrative is a short story that describes what it will be like for someone to use your product once it’s created. It breaks down the experience into steps and also includes the emotions, decisions, and context of the moment. It’s about painting the movie scene of the future before anyone starts writing requirements, sketching screens, or coding.

Here’s a simple example from a familiar domain:

Hazel logs on to her grocery account. She sees her order from last week and decides to use it again as a starting point. Then, she removes a few items by dragging them off her list, smiling as her total updates instantly. She adds new things from the "suggested items" list which is populated by her most frequent purchases. When she clicks "Check Out," Hazel is pleasantly surprised that the system automatically applies coupons to her order instead of making her search for them. She clicks “Deliver,” chooses a time, and feels energized as her confirmation appears: groceries will arrive in an hour. Hazel closes her laptop, already thinking about what she’ll do with the extra time she just gained back.

Notice how the narrative conveys Hazel's delight, reassurance, and productivity. That’s the difference. A good experience narrative should spark excitement in your team. If your team isn't a little jazzed about the future you've written, chances are your users won't be either.

• User story: As a customer, I want to reorder past purchases so that I can save time.

• Experience narrative: Hazel reorders her groceries in seconds, smiles at the instant updates, and feels reassured by her confirmation.

Why Experience Narratives are Great

• Fast to create: You can draft one in 15 minutes.

• Easy to align on: Everyone understands a story. No jargon needed.

• Iterative: Each team member can write their own, then combine the best parts into one.

• Vivid: They highlight how the experience feels, not just what the system does.

How They Connect to User Stories

Experience narratives make writing user stories faster and easier.

From Hazel's example, you can derive multiple user stories:

• As a customer, I want to reorder past purchases so that I can save time.

• As a customer, I want coupons applied automatically so that I don’t miss savings.

• As a customer, I want to confirm my delivery time so that I know my order is set.

The narrative conveys the whole experience. The stories break it into requirements.

How to Use Them with Your Team

• During discovery: Narratives are especially powerful early, when you’re aligning across UX, PM, and engineering.

• As a solo exercise: In a workshop, have each team member write their own. The differences reveal how aligned (or not) your team really is.

• To converge: Pull the most exciting, resonant parts from each version into one shared narrative that anchors the work ahead.

The magic of experience narratives is that they're fast, vivid, and human. They give everyone the same movie scene to aim for. When that story excites the team, it's a good signal that the experience will excite users too.