1. Personas and
Scenarios
What is a persona?
!
"A persona is a user archetype you can use to help
guide decisions about product features,
navigation, interactions, and even visual design."
— Kim Goodwin
2. Personas and
Scenarios
What is a persona?
!
"A persona encapsulates and explains the most
critical behavioral data in a way that designers
and stakeholders can understand, remember, and
relate to. Unlike simple lists of findings or other
types of models, personas use storytelling to
engage the social and emotional aspects of our
brains, which helps each team member either
visualize the best product behavior or see why the
recommended design is good."
— also Kim Goodwin
7. Why personas?
Remember, you are not the user.
The user might not be the user.
!
The "average" user doesn’t exist, and we can’t
design for everyone.
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The trick is designing for the right people.
!
(Pro tip: pewinternet.org is a great resource for
learning about digital users.)
8. And why?
Personas can help us gain empathy and insight.
http://www.teachthought.com/learning/the-role-of-empathy-in-learning/
12. Personas
Everything in the persona’s descriptions tells you
something important about her attitudes, goals,
behaviors, plans.
13. Personas
Even fictitious details (based on composites from
your research) help make this seem like a real
person. With whom all team members and
stakeholders want to be empathic.
14. Personas
What can they be used for?
!
— Defining and designing the product
— Communicating with stake-holders about your
audience
— Building consensus and rallying a team
around a goal
—Marketing the product
— Developing documentation
— Even prioritizing bug fixes
15. Personas are NOT
What are personas NOT? It’s true, it can be
confusing.
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— NOT the "average user"
— NOT a market segment
— Not a role (in the sense of enterprise software
development)
!
16. Why do personas
work?
They encourage us to relate to users in human ways.
Without having to actually handle live humans during
the design process.
24. Why do personas
work?
Would you react to these the same way?
!
Would you design for these the same way?
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People engage with people in a special way.
!
25. Why do personas
work?
And don’t forget the storytelling.
!
"Good data, rigorous analysis, and compelling,
human presentation are all essential to making
personas work."
— Kim Goodwin
26. Counterpoint
"[T]he more we use proxies to convey information, the
more we are relying on all of the communicating
parties having the same set of reference points.That’s
why it’s so important in a design process that any type
of information vessel be treated not as a static artifact,
but as a material that we can work with to clarify
interpretations and surface assumptions."
— Dan Soltzberg (http:///www.portigal.com/blog/
major-mccheese/)
!
A persona is not a category to market to.And don’t
forget there are real users you need to serve.
27. Building Personas
"Creating personas involves identifying the critical
behavior patterns and turning them into a set of
useful characterizations… . It’s entirely possible that
your initial impression of the pattern is correct, but in
many cases the obvious pattern is based on
demographics rather than behavior, or is otherwise
missing some critical factor."
— Kim Goodwin
29. Building Personas
See Kim’s book for a more rigorous, in-depth process
(useful in large companies or projects)…
!
Let’s go with a more lightweight and rapid approach.
30. Building Personas
See Kim’s book for a more rigorous, in-depth process
(useful in large companies or projects)…
!
Let’s go with a more lightweight and rapid approach.
Jeff Gothelf,@jboogie
32. Building Personas
What info do we need?
!
— Name and sketch
— Demographic info
— Needs
— How we address needs
!
33. Building Personas
Group exercise: create two personas
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— Name and sketch
— Demographic info
— Needs
— How we address needs
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— Each group will share one
persona with the room
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38. User stories and roles
can represent single
needs, single emotions.
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Your product or service
shouldn’t.
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Think of the user, facing
the whole shebang.
Why Scenarios?
39. Building Scenarios
The end goal of buying a TV is WATCHING TV.
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It’s not having the pleasure of buying a dang TV.
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For all journeys:
What starts it? What steps along the way?
40. Building Scenarios
DO
!
— Where
— When
— Why
— How
— How often
— With whom
— With what tools
& information
FEEL
!
—About their
tools and tasks as
they stand
WANT
!
— To learn?
— To accomplish?
— To feel?
42. Building Scenarios
Note:
!
These are communication and generative tools.
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They don’t prioritize issues.
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Though they can help find common pain points.
!
Or even a business case.
43. Building Scenarios
Partner exercise (20 minutes):
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1. Tell the story of a recent episode (~10m)
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2. Outline the steps ("I need…" to "I’m happy")
across the top
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For each step:
1. Do: task flow, info shared, tools used, etc.
2. Feel: about that experience
3. Want: to learn, to accomplish, to feel
46. Building Scenarios
Make a to-do list.
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Each persona’s typical "journeys" (maybe 2-3).
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They can be big or small journeys, but always from
the start to the finish.
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A person’s whole day may be one scenario, or
constant task-switching.