4. To design for your users
you must first
define who your users are
5. Where did the idea come from?
• A Persona is an artificial person, invented for the
purpose of helping a designer understand the
people who will be using their product.
• Pruitt and Adlin have traced their heritage to much
earlier. But to the modern design community, their
usage was popularized by Alan Cooper in 1998 in
his book "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum."
Flow Interactive
10. What aren’t Personas?
• Stereotypes!!!
They are the synthesis of user research findings.
They are not simply made up!
• Users aren’t elastic.
Flow Interactive
16. Data driven personas
The clue is in the name!
The data comes from client’s inhouse knowledge.
The good stuff comes from
‘looking’ at how your users interact
with your website.
Good to use when you have a rich
set of data, such as Amazon,
Play.com, etc.
Flow Interactive
17. How much research?
Depends on how diverse your users’ behaviours really are.
Typically we find that behaviour is less diverse that you might
expect.
Anything from 6 to 20 respondents is typical and useful.
Sometimes do more for political reasons.
Supplement with all your existing data: search logs, surveys,
focus groups, customer facing staff
Examples…
First choice
15
lab
BUPA
20
lab
Yell
16
field
DfES
59
field
18. What’s an effective way of communicating these back
to your design team?
How can you make them ‘actionable’?
... and bring them to life for non-research lovers?
Flow Interactive
19. Personas and goals workshop
Price driven
Quality driven
Nervous user
Confident user
Fact driven
Feeling driven
Wilma is a middle aged bookkeeper from
Hatfield. She uses Sage and Excel on a
rather old computer at work, but has
internet access at home. She has an eye
for a bargain but is a stickler for details.
Flow Interactive
20.
21. Persona consist of goal statements:
• Life goals e.g. “get the big promotion!”
vs “be an ethical person”
• Experience goals: e.g. “have fun” vs
“get it done quickly” (1-2)
• End goals: e.g. “find the cheapest
flights”
• Design challenges. E.g. Why this
persona is important to the business,
and what to bear in mind
• And a motto
• One sentence that sums up the
persona
22. Personas come in two main flavours:
•
Primary persona – the primary persona is the singularly most
important person for whom the site should be designed. The
primary persona should always “emerge” from the set of
secondary personas: it should not be created from scratch.
Secondary personas – typically between three and seven of
these are generated from the ethnographic research first,
before the primary persona.
With big systems (e.g. CMS), you can have lots of different
user types, each of which you’d sum up as personas.
You can also have negative personas: people you want to
specifically exclude
Flow Interactive
23. Quick guide to personas
• Create a narrative – ideally, a one to two-page narrative
description for each persona
• Be specific – identify workflow and daily behavioural
patterns, using specific details, not generalities. Detail two
or three technical skills to give an idea of computer
competency
• Create mnemonic triggers – include one or two fictional
details about the persona's life, e.g. an interest or a habit
that make each persona unique and memorable
Flow Interactive
24. Quick guide to personas
• Use your imagination – don't use someone you actually
know as a persona. Try instead to create a composite
based on the qualitative data you have captured
• Strive for novelty – don't recycle a persona from a previous
project for a new project. Instead, do your ethnography
properly and create new personas for each project
Flow Interactive
25. Quick guide to personas
• Keep the numbers low – keep the number of personas
created for a project relatively small. Usually between three
and seven secondary personas, depending on the interface
project, from which will emerge the primary persona
• Be realistic – strive to develop a believable archetype so
the design team will accept the persona
Flow Interactive
26.
27.
28.
29. Making & using personas
Review existing
data and formulate
persona
hypothesis.
Recruit research
subjects based on
the persona
hypothesis.
Perform contextual
research.
Analyse existing
and new data
using collaborative
affinity sorting
techniques.
Establish
dimensions and
goals.
Create the
personas.
Workshop:
establish
dimensions, create
sketches, select
and flesh out
personas. Assign
goals.
Flow Interactive
Introduce the
personas to the
organisation, as
project style and
objectives require.
30. Key things to consider:
• Fictional utility – personas are not "made up". They are an
output of data analysis
• Imaginary, not woolly – although personas are imaginary,
they are archetypes not caricatures, and should be defined
with precision.
• Realism – names and personal details for personas should
be created to put contextual flesh on the archetypal bones
• Goals – personas should in the first instance be
differentiated and identified by their goals
• Persona-centric design – interfaces should be designed
and built to very specifically satisfy the needs and goals of
the primary persona
Flow Interactive
33. •After a user study, we
analysed participants
responses to get an overview.
-
Age and Segment
Type of trip
Motivations
Frustrations
Behaviours and Attitudes
End Goals when researching and
booking travel online
Flow Interactive
34. •We mapped each
participant against key
behavioural axis:
- Planning in advance/Last minute
- Relax/Explore
- Attitude to risk
Flow Interactive
35. We located patterns of
behaviour and found groups
of users that ‘stuck
together’…
Flow Interactive
36. Book in
advance
Quality
Relax
1,2,3,4
1,4,7,16,
17,19,20
1,4,5,6,7,
8,9,15,
17,19
Previous Previous hotel
destination
1,2,5,7,8,
910,15,16,
17,19,20,
1,17,
19,20
1-2 trips a
year
Maximiser
Emotional
3,6,12
3,4,5,6,9,
11,13,14,
15,16,18
1,2,3,
12,13,14,
16,20
Main researcher Travel alone
2,14
7,8,10,
17,19,20
1-2 days
Brand loyal
Destination
driven
Web fresh
Trust reviews
19,17,20
1,3,7,8,10
12,13,15,
17,19,20
3,10,14,15
8,14
3,4,5,6,9,
11,13,14
15,18,20
3-4 days
With friends
1,7,11,13,
15,16,18
3 -6 trips a
year
5,6,7,8
3,5,8,9,12,
13,14,18
3,5,8,9,12,
13,14,18
Joint decision
2,4,5,7,8,
3,4,5,6,8,
9,10,11,12
13,15,16,18
3,12,13,
14,16,18
With partner
1,2,11,15,
9,10,11,
12,13,14
Relationship intermediate intermediate
driven
1 week
8,9,12
2,4,5,6,8
9,11,12,
13,16,18
2,12,13,
15,`7
2,8,10,
12,16,19
2 weeks
2,4,5,
6,10,14
15,16,17,
18,19,20
2,6,10,
11,15
3,10,16
3,4,6,
11,1213,
14,18
2,3,4,5,6,7,
8,9,10,11,
12,13,14
15,16,18
3,10,16
1,2,7,
8,10,12
17,19,20
4,5,6,7,8,9,
10,11,15
17,18,19
3,10,16
4,5,6,9
3
2,4,5,6,9,
14,16,18
1,7,17,
19,20
1,3,4,5,6,
7,9,10,
11,16,18,
19,20
1,7,17
Book last
minute
Price
Explore
New destination
New
hotel
1-2 trips a
month
Satisficer
Practical
Sole decision
With family
More than 2
weeks
Google
Event driven
Web savvy
Don’t trust .
Flow Interactive
37. Book in
advance
Quality
Relax
1,2,3,4
1,4,7,16,
17,19,20
1,4,5,6,7,
8,9,15,
17,19,20
Previous Previous hotel 1-2 trips a year
destination
Maximiser
Emotional
1,2,5,7,8,
910,15,16,
17,19,20
3,4,5,6,9,
11,13,14,
15,16,18
1,2,3,
12,13,14,
16
1,17,
19,20
3,6,12
Main researcher Travel alone
2,14
7,8,10,
17,19,20
1-2 days
Brand loyal
Destination
driven
19,17,20
1,3,7,8,10
12,13,15,
17,19,20
3,10,14,15
Web fresh Trust reviews
8,14
3,4,5,6,9,
11,13,14
15,18,20
With friends
1,7,11,13,
15,16,18
3 -6 trips a
year
3,5,8,9,12,
13,14,18
3,5,8,9,12,
13,14,18
Joint decision
1,2,4,5,7,8,
9,10,11,13,
14,15,16,18
5,6,7,8
3,4,5,6,8,
9,10,11,12
13,15,16,18
3,12,13,
14,16,18
With partner
1,2,11,15,
9,10,11,
12,13,14
Relationship intermediate
driven
1 week
8,9,12
Don’t look
for reviews
2,4,5,6,8
9,11,12,
13,16,18
2,12,13,
15,`7
2,8,10,
12,16,19
2 weeks
2,4,5,
6,10,14
15,16,17,
18,19,20
2,6,10,
11,15
3,10,16
3,4,6,
11,1213,
14,18
2,3,4,5,6,7,
8,9,10,11,
12,13,14
15,16,18
17,19,20
1,2,7,
8,10,12
17,19,20
4,5,6,7,8,9,
10,11,15
17,18,19,20
1,7,17,
20,19
4,5,6,9
3
2,4,5,6,9,
14,16,18
1,7,17,
19,20
1,3,4,5,6,
7,9,10,
11,16,18,
19,20
1,7,17
Book last
minute
Price
Explore
New destination
New
hotel
1-2 trips a
month
Satisficer
Practical
Sole decision
With family
More than 2
weeks
Google
Event driven
Web savvy
Don’t trust
reviews .
Flow Interactive
42. Personas are the first step to innovation
5
Contextual research
2
Concept
3
Prototype
4
Specify
5
1
1
Build and launch
4
2
3
And they are useful throughout
the rest of the design* process!
They are a fundamental
tool for innovation.
* Design is the whole thing,
not just the graphics
43. Personas: Used as a communication tool
•It all about getting everyone to sing off the same song
sheet
•Focusing on users
•Reducing arguments
They enable decision making because you can ‘query’
them as if they were a ‘real’ person
•Standardised approach
•Common language
•They fill in the gaps between user-studies - you can’t have
users on-site all the time.
Flow Interactive
48. References
▪
Carroll, John M. Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions.
MIT Press, 2000. ISBN 0-262-03279-1
▪
Carroll, J.M. ed. Scenario-Based Design: Envisioning Work and Technology in System
Development. Wiley, 1995. ISBN 0-471-07659-7
▪
Chapman, C.N. & Milham, R. The personas' new clothes. Human Factors and Ergonomics
Society (HFES) 2006, San Francisco, CA. October 2006. [1]
▪
Cooper, Alan. The Inmates are Running the Asylum. SAMS, 1999. ISBN 0-672-31649-8
▪
Grudin, J. and Pruitt, J. Personas, participatory design and product development: an
infrastructure for engagement. Paper presented at Participatory Design Conference 2002,
Malmo, Sweden. June 2002.
▪
Pruitt, John & Adlin, Tamara. The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout
Product Design. Morgan Kaufmann, 2006. ISBN 0-12-566251-3
▪
Rönkkö, K. An empirical study demonstrating how different design constraints, project
organization, and contexts limited the utility of personas. Hawaii International Conference
on System Sciences (HICSS) 2005, Waikoloa, HI. January 2005.