Module 05 in the one-week intensive for community college instructors, offered by MPICT.org.

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

3. Personas and
Scenarios
What is a persona?
!

4. Personas and
Scenarios
What is a persona?
!

5. Personas and
Scenarios
What is a persona?
!

6. Props
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/06/28/
kim-goodwin-using-scenarios-to-design-
intuitive-experiences/
Podcast transcript:
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/06/28/kim-
goodwin-using-scenarios-to-design-intuitive-experiences/

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.
!
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/

9. Example

10. Example
name
type/title
image
age
summary quotation
narrative that includes mental model, drive,
concerns, frustrations, others relevant to
understanding the behavior pattern

11. Example

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.
!
— 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.

17. Why do personas
work?
They present collected data as people, not
abstract ideas.
!

18. Why do personas
work?
Quick! Think of "wizard".
!
Got it?

19. Why do personas
work?
Was it…
!

20. Why do personas
work?
Was it…
!
(grey or white,doesn’t really matter)

21. Why do personas
work?
Was it…
!

22. Why do personas
work?
Was it…
!

23. Why do personas
work?
Was it…
!

24. Why do personas
work?
Would you react to these the same way?
!
Would you design for these the same way?
!
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

28. Building Personas
REMEMBER:
!
— Find patterns
— GOOB! Get Out Of the Building, do field work

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

31. Building Personas
Lightweight Personas
!
—A model of what we know today
— Low investment
— Easy to improve
— (And as you can see,
all you need is pen and paper.)

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
!
— Name and sketch
— Demographic info
— Needs
— How we address needs
!
— Each group will share one
persona with the room
!

34. Building Personas
What did you find?
!
!

35. Scenarios
Not the same as personas.
!
!
!
!

36. Scenarios
Not the same as personas.
!
!
!
!

37. User stories and
roles are often
narrow problem
definitions.
!
!
!
!
Why Scenarios?

38. User stories and roles
can represent single
needs, single emotions.
!
Your product or service
shouldn’t.
!
Think of the user, facing
the whole shebang.
Why Scenarios?

39. Building Scenarios
The end goal of buying a TV is WATCHING TV.
!
It’s not having the pleasure of buying a dang TV.
!
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?

41. Building Scenarios
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4
Do
Feel
Want

42. Building Scenarios
Note:
!
These are communication and generative tools.
!
They don’t prioritize issues.
!
Though they can help find common pain points.
!
Or even a business case.

43. Building Scenarios
Partner exercise (20 minutes):
!
1. Tell the story of a recent episode (~10m)
!
2. Outline the steps ("I need…" to "I’m happy")
across the top
!
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

44. Building Scenarios
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4
Do
Feel
Want
Sharing time

45. Building Scenarios
Scenarios are
about what
happens in the
magic future, not
the past (or the
present).
!
(From an awesome
Kim Goodwin
workshop.)

46. Building Scenarios
Make a to-do list.
!
Each persona’s typical "journeys" (maybe 2-3).
!
They can be big or small journeys, but always from
the start to the finish.
!
A person’s whole day may be one scenario, or
constant task-switching.

47. Building Scenarios

48. Building Scenarios

49. Building Scenarios
What can you fix?
!
Reduce frustration?
!
Reduce anxiety?
!
Reduce the user’s workload:
— cognitive
— memory
— motor
!

50. Building Scenarios
What can you fix?
!
"What would a thoughtful human do?"— Goodwin

51. Building Scenarios
Let’s give it a shot.

52. Building Scenarios
Let’s share.

53. Use Cases

54. Building Scenarios
If you’ve worked with project requirements…

55. Next up:
Maps and flows
ddt@twoangstroms.com
twitter web