Using Personas

Andrea Resmini

using personas

in web projects,
an early view on users
is typically provided via
simple demographic data

ANDREA RESMINI USING PERSONAS NOV 26 2009

(WHITNEY QUESENBERY, PERSONAS AND STORYTELLING)

 aged 30-45
 well educated
 45% married with children
 use the web 3-5 times/week
 65% use search engines


sure there's a lot of
information there,
but what about this:


“
Maria is 37 years old.
She's married to Jonas and has
two children, Peter and Anna.
She has a degree from the local
university and runs the
swimming club web site.
Besides that, she uses the web
mostly to manage her business.


such a depiction helps
the much fabled target
audience become
tangible and compelling


it helps bring users
into the design team and
make them as real as the
technical details and the
design concepts


this description
is the base starting
point of a persona


(ANN MORRIS, THEPASSIONOFTHEPROGRAMMER.COM)


what a persona is


a persona is
a fictional character
representing different
user types within
a targeted demographic


a persona is
01. a narrative
02. describing a usage pattern
03. embodied in a fictional user
04. by means of text and images
05. and based on project data


a persona is
a tool in UCD projects


a persona is
communicated through
any kind of deliverables


(MEET DANIELE, A FOOTBALL FAN. HE'S A PERSONA)


(MEET THESE CHARACTERS FROM A COMIC STRIP, THEY ARE PERSONAS TOO)


what a persona is not


a persona is not a job role


a persona is not an IT-related role


a persona is not someone you know


why use personas?


A user model


personas help communicate
inside the team
who are building your web site for


B
pattern identification


although the general public
is a vast diverse body of people,
users display very few distinct
patterns of behavior on the website.


Cdata reduction


all data illustrating
user behavior is useful,
everything else much less


how do you create
personas?


1
start with research


web traffic data


user tests


user observation
in work environments


2
gather 2dn hand data


information provided
by help / support staff


surveys or marketing data
from sales staff


3
design iteratively


personas are tightly coupled
with use scenarios, so ...


… start telling stories about them


stories is how personas go
from being pictures
to being action figures


you suffer writer's block?


three simple steps
to help you get going


1
establish a goal
and a context


why is the persona
using the product now
what will make
this interaction successful


2
describe the interaction


stay at a high level
avoid detailed descriptions
of the interface


3
end with the results


what happens as a result
of this interaction
what made it successful


4
add plenty of details


names, pictures, biographies, their
pets and their hobbies


how is a persona used?


to surrogate user testing


to help advocate
for your users


to communicate
user needs


to evaluate new features


to help make
design decisions


to help weigh
business decisions


for task analysis and
use cases


issues with personas


thank you!
Andrea Resmini
<andrea.resmini@gmail.com>


Using Personas

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