Making a good persona is just the beginning. They need to be recognized and relied on by the entire team. Creating a successful persona program can be a huge challenge. Learn strategies for making sure that the personas you create become essential to your team.

1. UPA International Conference
June, 2012
Putting Personas to Work
Presented by
Carol Smith & Richard Douglass
@Carologic @RichardDouglass

2. Getting Personas Adopted
Throughout Your Organization

3. WHICH STUDENT?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrjkbh/ via http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caharley72/ (Christopher Alison Photography) via
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0

4. Selling Personas

5. G E T T I N G B U Y- I N F O R P E R S O N A S
•We don’t need UX – we know our users
•Tell us the story
• What are they really doing?
• What are their goals?
• Roadblocks?
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6. S E L L I N G I N T E R N A L LY
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg

7. INTRODUCING PERSONAS

8. PROGRESSIVE DISCLOSURE
•Like real-life, dating
•You are the match-maker
• Create opportunities to get to know them
• Tell the story, effectively
• Support recall of significant details
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9. PROGRESSIVE DISCLOSURE
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10. TELL THE STORY
•Clarify how the personas are to be used
• Support design and development
• What they cannot do
•For each persona:
• Goals
• Needs
• How use product
• Challenges
• “Irrelevant Information” creates the mnemonic
•Introduce Artifacts
•Encourage and answer questions
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11. Get The Persona To Work

12. SHARE WHAT YOU LEARN
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13. SUCCESSFUL PROGRAMS
•Form a team that includes product/project team members
•The team:
• Supports persona development
• Reviews personas regularly
• Advocates for personas
• Watches for opportunities
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14. TEAM LEADER
•Curates personas
•Tracks work that may influence personas
•Identifies opportunities to enhance them
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15. KEEP PERSONAS ALIVE
•Make opportunities to sew them into culture
•Regular touch points
•Refresh documentation regularly
•E-mail addresses for personas
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16. WORKING SESSIONS
•Include them at meetings
•Role play or “channel” the persona
• Review of interface thru eyes of Persona
• Analyze competition
• Review stories/scenarios
What would they do? Would they use this?
The User is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web
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17. ACTIVITIES
•Panel with “Personas” (role playing)
• Individual teams, products, etc.
• Answer questions in character
•Meet & Greet
•Birthday party
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18. A R T I FA C T S
•Public
• Posters
• Large Boards
•Personal
• Persona
• Reference Sheets
• Books
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19. CONNECT TO PROJECT WORK
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20. Managing Personas

21. C O M M U N I C AT I O N P L A N
•What to communicate
• Progressive disclosure - Highlights
• Updates
• Tips for use
•When
•To whom (team, stakeholders, etc.)
•How (Web site, Email, etc.)
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22. U P D AT I N G P E R S O N A S
•Plan:
• Ongoing work
• Include open questions in new projects.
• Include in planning templates
• Usability study triggers a persona review.
• Communication Plan
• Regular reviews.
• Plan for distribution of updates.
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23. REUSING PERSONAS
•Up-to-date personas and profiles;
• Can be used indefinitely for the same product;
• If Goals and Needs remain static.
•Potentially form “Persona Teams.”
•Inform new persona development efforts.
• Provide a preliminary context.
•Do Not re-purpose for different:
• Products
• Scenarios
• Needs and goals
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24. C R E AT E P E R S O N A T E A M S ( FA M I L I E S )
•Extend - include all aspects of experience.
•Provides a preliminary context.
•Complex set of products.
•Group personas in meaningful ways.
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25. EXAMPLE – ONLINE ORDERING
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26. E X A M P L E : E D U C AT I O N ( C O N T I N U E D )
•One persona to represent all Shoppers is extremely
unlikely.
•More likely:
• Small set of personas for each role.
• Few more for additional roles.
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27. S H A R E W H AT Y O U K N O W
•Personas interact at various times
• In person.
• Virtual “handshakes.”
•Convey to the team:
• Where occur?
• When?
• Frequency?
• What information is exchanged?
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28. F I N D PAT T E R N S , C O M M O N A L I T I E S
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29. R E S U LT S
•Knowledge of relationships between personas.
•Frequency of their interactions.
•What they need from each other.
•What they provide to each other.
•Different Lenses:
• Pain points by: product, service, need, and motive.
• Motivations based on personas:
goals, needs, tasks, occupation, family, and
environment.
• Commonalities such as: tech use, tech
purpose, demographics, occupation, and context of use.
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30. R E S U LT S , C O N T
•Once documented prioritize relationships
• Team understands which interactions are most important
to the users and the products functionality.
• Visual work flows are ideal.
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31. NEXT STEPS
•Identify gaps and plan to fill them.
•Sync with market segments (if they exist).
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32. S TA R T N O W
•Creating strawman Profiles now
•Schedule and conduct research with users
•Expand Profiles into Personas
•Build on what you know
•Keep digging - each project can answer more questions
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33. D O U X E A R LY A N D O F T E N
•Create Information Radiators
• Personas
• Artifacts
• Schedule of activities
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34. RECOMMENDED READINGS
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35. C O N TA C T U S
Carol J. Smith Richard Douglass
Twitter: @carologic Twitter: @richarddouglass
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/caroljsmith http://www.linkedin.com/in/richarddouglass1
Slideshare:
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/richarddouglass/
http://www.slideshare.net/carologic
Speaker Rate:
Speaker Rate: http://speakerrate.com/speakers/25641-
speakerrate.com/speakers/15585- richard-douglass
caroljsmith
E-mail: richard@improvedusability.com
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36. QUESTIONS?

37. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N
•The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating
and Using Personas for the Web by Steve Mulder
•The Persona Life-Cycle by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin
•The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper
•Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to
User Research by Mike Kuniavsky
•Additional Reference list:
http://v3.thewatchmakerproject.com/journal/375/using-
personas-to-inform-design
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38. REFERENCES
•Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services by Kim
Goodwin (one chapter)
•The Persona Life-Cycle by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin
•The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web by
Steve Mulder
•The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper
•Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research by Mike Kuniavsky
•Babcock, L. and Sara Laschever. (2008). “Ask For It: How Women can use the Power of
Negotiation to Get What They Really Want.” Bantam Books.
•Godin, Seth. (2010) “Linchpin: Are you Indispensable?” Penguin Group.
•Ury. William L. (1991) “Getting Past NO: Negotiating in Difficult Situations.” Bantam.
•Fisher, Roger and William L. Ury. (1981) “Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without
Giving In.” Penguin Group.
•Kennedy, Gavin. (2004). “Essential Negotiation.” The Economist and Profile Books LTD.
•Lavington, Camille. (2004) “You’ve Only Got Three Seconds: How to make the right impression
in your business and social life.” Doubleday.
•Lewicki, Roy J., et. Al. (2004) “Essentials of Negotiation.” McGraw-Hill Irwin.
•Young, Ed. (2011) “Justice is served, but more so after lunch: how food-breaks sway the
decisions of judges.” Discover Magazine.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/04/11/justice-is-served-but-more-so-
after-lunch-how-food-breaks-sway-the-decisions-of-judges/ Retrieved on October 24, 2011.
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39. CONTROVERSY

40. CONTROVERSY
•Irrelevant information
•“Pseudo-science”
• Not trying to be scientific
• Statistical methods used to analyze data
• Rigorous, repeatable methods
• Result in mostly qualitative data
The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design
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by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin

41. BENEFITS
•Personas enable team to learn and remember user’s
efficiently and effectively
•Reduces chance decisions will be made based on seniority
or influence in the organization
•Make a better product
•Help teams avoid:
• Designing for themselves/technology
• Designing for everyone
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