As a user I want to re-enter my password…

Just coming from http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/user-stories-a-foundation-for-ui-design/, but as a UX professional I really don’t get all the hype about those Scrum user stories. I know they are currently a big thing, but I simply don’t understand them, or at least how they are used.

In my opinion, renaming an old-fashioned requirement like „The system shall support password verification“ to  “As a user I want to re-enter my password to verify it.” won’t make anything more user-focused.

As a user I do not want to re-enter anything. This may be a reasonable security requirement, but clearly not a wish of the user. What comes next? As a user I want to enter a hardly readable Captcha Code?

In my opinion, a better user story for the example above would be something like: „As a user I want to get started with the product as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible“. That’s what most users probably really want and this may simply mean  logging in with your Facebook account, which does not involve any account creation or re-entering of passwords.

I also don’t understand this repetitive „as a user“ formula. If I have to read hundreds of stories beginning with „As a user…“ my brain would start to filter that part out, because it is completely redundant and offers no additional value to me. If we would use something like „As a student“, „As a new member“, „as a busy person“ instead, this may add some value.