using personas

using personasAndrea Resmini

ANDREA RESMINI USING PERSONAS NOV 26 2009

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

simple demographic data


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

(WHITNEY QUESENBERY, PERSONAS AND STORYTELLING)


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 fictional characterrepresenting different

user types withina targeted demographic

a persona is


01. a narrative 02. describing a usage pattern03. embodied in a fictional user 04. by means of text and images05. and based on project data

a persona is


a tool in UCD projects

a persona is


a persona is

communicated throughany 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?


Auser model


personas help communicateinside the team

who are building your web site for


Bpattern 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 illustratinguser behavior is useful,

everything else much less


how do you create personas?


1start with research


web traffic data


user tests


user observation in work environments


2gather 2dn hand data


information providedby help / support staff


surveys or marketing datafrom sales staff


3design iteratively


personas are tightly coupledwith 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 stepsto help you get going


1establish a goaland a context


why is the personausing the product now

what will makethis interaction successful


2describe the interaction


stay at a high levelavoid detailed descriptions

of the interface


3end with the results


what happens as a resultof this interaction

what made it successful


4add plenty of details


names, pictures, biographies, their pets and their hobbies


how is a persona used?


to surrogate user testing


to help advocatefor your users


to communicateuser needs


to evaluate new features


to help makedesign decisions


to help weighbusiness decisions


for task analysis anduse cases


issues with personas


thank you!Andrea Resmini

<[email protected]>

using personas

Design

andrea resmini slide

coupledwith use scenarios

fictional user

swimming club web site

design team

distinct patterns of

general public

writers block