45 min uxd summit persona talk

What’s the Deal with Personas?

Ramya UX Architect at Cardinal Solutions

@rams_mahalingam

PERSONAA persona is a fictional description

of a standard user of a product.

we’re not designing for ourselves

EMPATHY

EMPATHYJUDGEMENT

R.I.P.

The way we make personas isn’t working

3 things happen

1. comfort

we tend to make personas that are safe, comfortable, and familiar

2. labels

the descriptors of our humans

gender

gender

age

gender

age

name

3. bias

normal

"Joe Six-Pack is people just like me — work every day, pay their taxes." — Mohammad Khan, an immigrant from Bangladesh

"When I think Joe Six-Pack, I think of the hunter and his gun and his dog, and that's a definite white man out in the countryside,”

— Blanche Hake, a retired teacher

"The others are lazy. They don't work as hard, so that's where the Joe Six-Pack comes in. He's a hard-working white man."

— Margie Orr

1. comfort

1. comfort

2. labels

1. comfort

2. labels

3. bias

The way we construct personas allows us to introduce our own bias

person-nah’s?

JTBD

A 2-pronged Approach

Recognize and challenge your unconscious bias

a single story

Shift the focus of the persona

Market Segments

Personas

Personas

goalsmarket segments

Reframe

“How will this affect the way they use the product?”

Reframe

“How will this affect the way they use the product?”

63 years old larger font size

Qualitative Research

Personas are Intersectional

why bother?

REFERENCES

Persona Non Grata, Dan Saffer, August 17 2005

Personas are "empathy tools," not stereotypes, Sam Ladner, November 17 2008

A Closer Look At Personas: What They Are And How They Work (Part 1), Shlomo Goltz, August 6 2014

Resurrecting Dead Personas, Meg Dickey-Kurdziolek, July 26 2016

Designing for imaginary friends: information architecture, personas and the politics of user-centered design, Adrienne L. Massanari, June 12 2010

Is stereotyping inevitable when designing with personas?, Phil Turner and Susan Turner, July 27 2012

Crappy Personas vs. Robust Personas, Jared Spool, November 14 2007

The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper, January 1 1999

Reconciling market segments and personas, Cooper, May 15 2008

Ramya @rams_mahalingam