User Experience
Acceptance Criteria
Plain English
What needs to be true for something to be done.
Definition
Acceptance criteria are the conditions that must be met for a piece of work to be considered complete.
In practice
Used to define expected outcomes and ensure shared understanding between teams.
The reality
Often too vague or incomplete, leading to misalignment and rework.
FAQ
Common questions
A few practical answers to the questions that usually come up around this term.
What are acceptance criteria?
Conditions that define when work is complete.
Why are they important?
They ensure glossaryClarityClarity is how easily users can understand what is happening and what they need to do.Open glossary term and glossaryAlignmentAlignment is the shared understanding and agreement between teams, stakeholders, and objectives.Open glossary term.
Who defines them?
Usually product owners with input from the team.
What happens if they are unclear?
Work may be incomplete or misunderstood.
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