Following the formal user story style:
As
<user>, I want<goal>so that<benefit>.
Our team has found difficulties in expressing things where there is a desire by the system's owners to do something which negatively affects the user.
As an arbitrary example, let's say owner wants to have the system charge customers every time they check their email.
Following the formal style of user stories, you might write this as follows:
As a customer, I want to be charged every time I check my email so that the system owner can increase their revenue.
Obviously the customer has no desire to be charged; the story becomes jarring to read and the language is getting in the way of the facts.
How could the requirement be written differently?
Best Answer
If paying money affected customers negatively, they wouldn't be using that service. Don't worry about this. Also, users don't (usually) pay money because they want to help out system owners, but because they want some service in exchange, so your example should really be like this:
Also, user stories are written from the perspective of all user roles, not just end customers. Consider writing this one from the perspective of the system owner as another user role:
A general advice: Focus on the positive part of the user story and don't overthink it. They should be simple. If the user story is very negative, without a way to avoid it, then the problem is with the conception of the system, and in that case it doesn't really matter what you write on your cards.