The Art of Clear Requirements

One of the biggest bottlenecks in software development isn’t code complexity; it’s ambiguity. When requirements are vague, engineers have to guess. When they guess, they often guess wrong, leading to rework and frustration.

Be Specific, Not Prescriptive

There’s a fine line between clarity and micromanagement. Good requirements describe the behavior and the constraint, not the implementation.

Bad: “Add a blue button that calls the /submit API endpoint.” Good: “When the user clicks the ‘Submit’ button, the form data should be sent to the server. If successful, show a success toast. The button should follow our primary action style.”

The “So What?” Test

Every requirement needs a “Why.” If you can’t explain why a user needs this, maybe you shouldn’t be building it.

I always try to include user stories in the format: As a [persona], I want to [action], so that [benefit].

The “so that” part is the most critical. It gives the engineer context. If they know the goal, they can often suggest a better way to achieve it than I could have imagined.