5. Personas
• Communication tool
• Combat elastic user
• Encapsulating user research
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6. Alan Cooper
• Profile:
• Chairman of Cooper
• Author of About Face, The Inmates are
Running the Asylum
• Creator of Personas
• “Father of Visual Basic”
• In 1994, Bill Gates awarded Alan Cooper
with one of only seven Windows Pioneer
Awards for my part in making Windows a
success through the creation of Visual
Basic.
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8. Persona Case Study: Parking Angel
• Parking Angel
http://www.cooper.com/insights/concept_projects/parking_angel.html
• Problem: You're driving in an area you don't know, you're
running late, and you have no idea where to park. Sound
familiar? We think this is a frustration technology could help
solve, so we decided to design a solution.
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9. Persona Case Study: Cooper
“Christine”
Christine's Frustrations:
• Hunting for parking spaces
• Paying for an expensive garage only to find an empty
metered spot around the corner
• Getting tickets when she can't remember which streets in
her neighborhood get cleaned on which nights
• Having to remember when her meter expires
• Not being able to find a spot that feels safe when she's
alone at night
• Stockpiling quarters in her cup holder
Christine's Goals:
• Save time and money
• Avoid "stupid" tickets
• Minimize stress
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10. Persona Case Study: Parking Angel
Solution
• Showing her open Scenario:
spaces close to her •
destination
• Only showing spaces
within her time, cost, or
distance parameters
• Sending her an email,
SMS, or voice
message when it's time
to move the car
• Letting her pay
electronically, so she
can use her cup holder
for more important
things (like her
morning coffee)
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11. Persona Case Study: Ford Verve
“Antonella”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/automobiles/19design.html
Antonella is an attractive 28-year old woman who lives in Rome. Her
life is focused on friends and fun, clubbing and parties.
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13. Persona Case Study: Ford
• Ford Verve
• [Antonella is] a character invented by Ford designers to
help them imagine cars better tailored to their intended
customers, she embodies a philosophy that guides the
company’s design studios these days: to design the car,
first design the driver.
• Antonella is the personification of a profile created from
demographic research about the Fiesta’s target customer.
• Ford is using characters like Antonella to bring a human
element to the dry statistical research drawn from polls and
interviews.
• “Invented characters get everyone on the same page.
Personalizing gives context to the information we have.
Sometimes the target demographics are difficult to relate to
by, say, a 35-year-old male designer.”
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14. Persona Case Study: Microsoft Research
Windows Personas
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/jgrudin/publications/personas/Pruitt-Grudin.pdf
“The act of creating Personas has
helped us make our assumptions
about the target audience more
explicit. Once created, the Personas
have helped make assumptions and
decision-making criteria equally
explicit. Why are we building this
feature? Why are we building it like
this?
Without Personas, development teams
routinely make decisions about
features and implementation without
recognizing or communicating their
underlying assumptions about who will
use the product and how it will be
used.”
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15. Persona Case Study: Coldplay
“Dave”
http://www.pointclearsolutions.com/blog/?p=159
Chris Martin:
“While writing, Martin says, ‘I always think of some regular 16-year-old called
Dave who’s on his bus trip to school: Is he going to want to listen to this? Last
time we got so worried about who thinks this and who thinks that, and this time
I’ve been really focused. On Dave. My 16-year-old imaginary friend. But not in
a weird way.’”
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17. Goals-directed method
• Essence of the goals-directed method
• Goals drive a person’s actions
• Tasks are things a person does in order to accomplish his
goals
• Tasks are important, but goals get you to big breakthroughs
• Good Design helps users
• Accomplish goals
• Feel competent
• Minimize work (usually)
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18. Goals-directed process
• Define data objects and
attributes
• Identify usage patters • Define functional elements of
• Analyze workflows product/service
• Assess work environment • Use scenarios to sketch and
and technical factors iterate important elements • Provide design consultation
• Create personas and goals • Develop visual design style • Respond to issues
the users the solution implement
the domain the analysis form & behavior
• Interviews • Identify risk and opportunities • Iterate through increasingly
• Competitor and • Construct context scenarios detailed scenarios
literature review • List functional and data • Collaborate with engineers for
needs feasibility
• Make trade-off decisions • Develop detailed visual design
• Conduct usability tests
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19. Interviews
• Multiple sources
• Stakeholders
• Subject matter/domain experts
• Customers
• Users and potential users
• Users
• Use role as a filter
• Select 4 per role (specialized), 8-12 (unspecialized)
• Divide role by geography, seniority, industry
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20. Interviews
• Interview method
• Overview questions (typical day etc.)
• “Case-focused” questions (stories etc.)
• “Grand tour” (walk through artifacts)
• Look around & understand work environment
• Ask about Tools
• Other general questions
• What wastes your time?
• What makes a good work day? bad work day?
• What kind of training do you have?
• What are most important things?
• What information helps you make decisions?
• Who do you get information from? 21
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21. Personas overview
• Personas help
• Determine what the product should do and how it should
behave
• Communicate with stakeholders and colleagues
• Get people committed to design
• Measure the design’s effectiveness
• Personas captures
• Goals • Environment
• Attitudes • Skill level
• Work or activity flow • Frustrations
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22. Personas overview
• Personas vs. market segments
Market Segments Personas
• Groups of customers who will • Groupings of users with similar
respond to similar messaging goals and usage patterns
• Tell you how to sell the product • Tell you how to satisfy
• Focus on buying customers
• Focus usage
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23. Creating personas
1 Identify variables
2 Map interviewees to variables
3 Identify major patterns
4 List characteristics & goals
5 Check the whole persona set
6 Develop narrative
7 Designate types
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24. Creating personas
1. Identify variables 1 Identify variables
• Quantity 2 Map interviewees to variables
• Frequency 3 Identify major patterns
• Demographics 4 List characteristics & goals
• Time / Level of effort 5 Check the whole persona set
• Attitude 6 Develop narrative
• Goals
7 Designate types
• Mental model
• Skill (technology / domain)
• Process
• Concerns
• Context
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25. Creating personas
2. Map interviewees to variables 1 Identify variables
• 2 Map interviewees to variables
3 Identify major patterns
4 List characteristics & goals
5 Check the whole persona set
6 Develop narrative
7 Designate types
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26. Creating personas
3. Identify major patterns 1 Identify variables
• Determine how the variables go together 2 Map interviewees to variables
to form major behavior patterns.
3 Identify major patterns
• What seems to the most important
distinctions among your interviewees? 4 List characteristics & goals
• Use short (2-3 word) descriptions for each 5 Check the whole persona set
major pattern.
6 Develop narrative
7 Designate types
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27. Creating personas
4. List characteristics & goals 1 Identify variables
• Goals 2 Map interviewees to variables
• What are they trying to accomplish? 3 Identify major patterns
4 List characteristics & goals
• Goals types 5 Check the whole persona set
• Life goals (get married by 30) 6 Develop narrative
• Experience goals (Have fun)
7 Designate types
• End goals (finish work by 5:00PM)
• Goal example
• “Stay busy, don’t get bored”
• “Manage money wisely”
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28. Creating personas
5. Check whole persona set 1 Identify variables
• Any redundant personas? 2 Map interviewees to variables
• Do you need customer, served or political 3 Identify major patterns
personas?
4 List characteristics & goals
5 Check the whole persona set
6 Develop narrative
7 Designate types
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29. Creating personas
6. Develop narrative 1 Identify variables
• Tell a story, make them real people. 2 Map interviewees to variables
• Add one or two personal details (college, 3 Identify major patterns
hobbies etc.)
4 List characteristics & goals
5 Check the whole persona set
6 Develop narrative
7 Designate types
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30. Creating personas
7. Designate type 1 Identify variables
• Persona types 2 Map interviewees to variables
• Primary 3 Identify major patterns
• Secondary 4 List characteristics & goals
• Supplemental 5 Check the whole persona set
• Negative 6 Develop narrative
7 Designate types
• If there are multiple personas with radically
different needs, there will be multiple primary
personas.
• Secondary persona is mostly satisfied with the
primary persona’s interface but has specific
additional needs. You do not always need
secondary personas.
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31. Creating personas
Primary user persona
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32. Creating contextual scenarios
• Contextual scenarios 1 Brainstorm
• How will personas use the product/service? 2 Revisit mental model
• Be goal-driven 3 Create context scenario
• Pretend it’s magic 4 List requirements
• Other concerns:
• What is the setting in which the product/service is used?
• How long will be used for? Are there interruptions?
• How much complexity is permissible?
• What major things does the persona need to accomplish?
• What should be the end result?
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34. Framework definition
• Framework 1
1 Define posture
and input methods
• Determine what data and functional 2
2
elements best address the data and Define data and
functional elements
3
functional needs
3 Group and sketch elements
• Data elements (price, color etc.) 4
using key path scenarios
• Functional element (product info box and 5
4 Check design with
interaction) validation scenarios
6
7
• Key path scenarios
• Define one or more scenarios that describe th
persona’s most important or frequent
workflows, using the interaction framework.
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