Question: The article mentions that some practitioners go to great lengths to represent their user as accurately and detailed as possible during their design process. Some even create "posters, websites, and real-size cardboards" of their poersona. Do we need to go that far in creating our personas? What is the benefit of going to such lengths?
Discussion: The more detail and effort you go to, the more concrete your persona will become. This will help you better design, especially if you are on a design team.
You could overdo it and waste time, money, and resources that aren't necessary.
What about recording the persona on a video? Either just describe the persona or hire an actor to portray the persona?
The more real it feels to you, the more detailed your design will be. Maybe not a life-size cardboard cutout, but detailed.
Q: The section "What Shapes a Persona?" quotes a designer saying, "Every product we build is a product we build for ourselves to solve our own problems." The figure (Figure 2) shown in this section also shows that, in practice, the designer's ideas play a large role in shaping a persona. To what extent do designers put themselves into a shaped persona?
D: Can you entirely separate yourself from a persona? Maybe not entirely.
It's hard to pull yourself out of it.
You are not the user.
Q: Do you get better Instructional Design when your group has concrete, defined personas, or can the design be just as good, or better, when given more creativity using no personas, (or unspoken personas)?
D: How do you know when you have the right persona? Your user analysis and research should lead you to the right persona.
If you only have one persona, are you leaving out a lot of your audience? Using multiple personas can help. You also have to realize that a business model is ok with leaving a few users behind if they don't fit your personas. This is contrary to what we do in education.
Q: Is there a time when we would choose not to use a persona?
D: Maybe not, but there are certainly times when it is difficult to pin down who your persona should be. When a large, diverse group of people are required to use a system. Mass use of a product creates a side range of users.
Child Personas: Fact or Fiction?
Q: Can a ten-year old child explain how they think to an adult? If not, are personae an adequate substitute? If not, what other methods could be brought into the process in order to improve the project?
D: You can have very good results, but there are some ways to make it more successful. If they have a relationship with the interviewer and are comfortable giving their opionions, you will have better response. If you didn't know the kids already, you would benefit from warming them up to you.
An unbiased, uninvolved interviewer (or at least someone the kids think don't care whether they liked it or not) might help because the kids would be willing to say what they really felt without worrying about offending the creator.
It seems more important to observe kids because they may not have the words to express their thoughts and they may have more surprising interactions with the program.
Q: Do you think we need to be more careful about putting our own views into child-personas than we need to be with adults?
D: I think so. I think if "you are not the user" as an adult, you are REALLY not the user when the user is a child. They are different than you were as a kid. You don't remember things as well as you may think. Designers may not be used to working with children.
I think it is a mistake not to use a child-persona. I think a child-persona will really help and can be created.
The Origin of Personas
Alan Cooper (1999, 2004) "The Inmates are Running the Asylum"
- Personas Goal: "Develop a precise description of our user and what he wishes to accomplish"
- User is a resiurce, but won't know solution!
- "Make up pretend users and design for them"
- Failure = design for borad, abstract groups
- Success = design for a single (archetype) user
Description of a specific, fictitious person
-Written in the form of a narrative
-Represents gathered info about a group of users with common characterisitcs (single users are too quirky!)
- Usually given both a name and a face
- May contain personal information (family members, friends, occupations, possessions) make the persona more "real"
- Focuses on the goals, needs, and frustrations of the persona when using the product being designed
- Some advocate using on primary persona
"Pretend" but not "made up"
-Based on data with users
- interviews - phone or face-to-face interviews can be better than email surveys because people self-correct in email, but when you are talking to them you get them more free-flowing
- Observations - watch them use the system
-Project team should refer to the persona by name
- Stop talking about abstract "users"!
-Should explicitly define the needs, goals, and frustrations of the persona
- Designers should be able to infer what features are needed and how they should be designed
Assisting communication
-Easier to talk about "James" and his needs
-User is too abstract -> doesn't drive decisions
Informs design decisions
-What does James need to do with the new system?
-How do you meet James's goals?
-How do you resolve James's frustrations?
Supports design evaluation
-Where will you trip up James?
-Will he know what to do? How to interact with the system?
-Will he even use the system?
Personas: Drawbacks?
Bad personas won't help you
Some consider them too "artsy"
User interviews can be costly
-Recruiting users
-Conducting interviews
-Transcribing protocols
-Time to analyze data, extrat themes
-Some estimates (Forrester Research): $47,000 for commercial apps
Creating Personas
Interview potential users. Take good notes! Or record it.
Identify key observations ("factoids")
-10-12 per interviewee is typical
Sort individuals into groups based on observations
Cluster key observations from multiple interviewees
-Look for patterns/themes
-Typically, 3-4 characteristics from each person are relevant to the group
Interview Data
-Look for common goals
-Look for common frustrations
-Look for common perspectives, approaches
- Technophlie vs. Technophobe?!
-How do users interact with existing technology?
-Do they take shorcuts?
-Frustrations? How quickly do they opt-out?
-Do they know how they use things? (Are they actually doing what they said they do when you interviewed them?)
Persona Template
Name
Role
Daily Tasks/Relevant
Experience
Likes
Dislikes
Goals? Needs?
Frustrations?
What interview questions should we ask?
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