Part of the Process

Recently I've been thinking about e mpathy in product development and how often in commercial software development that you are not the user. One area that I see a lot of people focus on is separating the problem from a potential solution in requirements.  Empathy Map by Oliver Quinlan User stories especially attempt to do this, unfortunately I don't think that the "As a ..." format as practiced is helpful, from my experience it's too easy to make it a justification exercise for a solution, it doesn't really help promote empathy or show that the user has really been taken into account. (Your mileage may vary and I'd be interested to hear from anyone who thinks that the "As A ..." user story format is the best available) In Innovation is not magic   Aly and Fernanda make the point "Innovators can get excited about things they can do and can become dazzled by the splendor of  their own creation. When someone has an idea,