Tallinn Winter School, Experimental Interaction Design workshop. Third workshop day: discussing personas, scenarios and user stories. Valeria Gasik, Darja Tokranova, Zahhar Kirillov

1. Personas, scenarios,
and user stories
From “huh?” to “how?”
Tallinn Winter School / Experimental Interaction Design 2014

2. What will your product do?
Data
Persona
Scenario
Use Cases
Users
Goals
Primary
A-1
A1-a, AI-b
Secondary
Supplementary
Political
Non-persona
A2, A3...
B1, B2, B3...
A2-a, A2-b...
A3-a, A3-b...
B1-a, BI-b...

3. Umm...?
Goals

4. I want to get from Paris to
Berlin safely and efficiently.

5. Goal
I want to get from
Paris to Berlin safely
and efficiently.
Tasks
1850’s
+
About Face 3, :The Essentials of Interaction Design (2007)

6. Goal
I want to get from
Paris to Berlin safely
and efficiently.
Tasks
1850’s
+
About Face 3, :The Essentials of Interaction Design (2007)
2014
+

7. Experience
goals
End
goals
Feeling/being, e.g.
Doing, e.g.
Feel cool
Share a photo
Tasks
Become admired
Find a best deal
Tasks
Remain focused
Do assignment
Tasks

8. Why goals?
•
Foundation for the design
End
goals
Doing, e.g.
•
Ground for discussion
•
A “reality check”
Share a photo
•
Empathy
Find a best deal
•
Easier to relate
(than to e.g. flow chart)
Do assignment

9. Personas

10. I work with flora
Gardeners
About Face 3 (p. 78)

11. I work with flora
I have a garden
at home
I work at the
botanic center
I’m a landscape
architecture
= raw data
About Face 3 (p. 78)

12. Persona
•
Describes imaginative users archetypes.
•
Is based on the real research and observation.
•
Shows user goals and their behavior patterns
Does not substitute testing with and
talking to the real people!

13. Background Bio
Name, (age), occupation, education
Photo(s)
Description
E.g. use environment or context, where the problem occurs
and current solutions and frustrations.
Goals
Mapping
•
•
E.g. computer
skills, necessity vs
fun, quality vs
price.
What are the user’s end goals?
2-4 end goals and 0-1 life goals is enough
for this workshop
Example template, yours can look different!

14. Petter Tamm
44, works at the botanic garden, father of two children
As a lead gardener, Petter is responsible in ordering
nutritions and specific soil for the plants for the
city’s botanic garden. Currently he has to do
bi-weekly orders over the phone from his office,
calling manufacturers one by one.
Reads reviews to
find best...
Goals
•
Wants to manage bulk orderings more efficiently
•
quality
price
Is looking for quality reviews about new products
Example template, yours can look different!

15. Persona ≠ Stereotype
Empathy and sensitivity to subjects vs.
biased caricatures.
Psychology student
Isabella
Spanish student
Maria

16. Before moving on
define “what” of your project
What need does it serve?

17. Scenarios

18. Scenarios
•
Stories that help understand interactions
•
A cheap way to illustrate design solution
from user’s point of view
•
Tell user’s goals, motivations and actions
“What should this product do?”
“How would user behave in this context?”
“What if...?”

19. Context-based scenario
It’s friday afternoon. Petter opens his desktop
computer at the botanic center’s office. He wants
to be quickly done with the extra flower soil orders.
Petter decides to order the same combination of
products as four weeks ago, but in smaller quantity. He
does not order nutritions this time.
Petter is not interested in staying at the office long. As
soon as the order is done, he leaves work to pick his
daughter from school.

20. Story background, settings
Goal “quick extra orders”
It’s friday afternoon. Petter opens his desktop
computer at the botanic center’s office. He wants
to be quickly done with the extra flower soil orders.
Petter decides to order the same combination of
products as four weeks ago, but in smaller quantity. He
does not order nutritions this time.
Petter is not interested in staying at the office long. As
soon as the order is done, he leaves work to pick his
daughter from school.
High level actions
(e.g. re-ordering x with changes, not ordering y.)
Motivation: efficiency

21. •
In what settings will the product be used?
•
Is the persona frequently interrupted?
•
With what other products will it be used?
•
What primary activities does the persona need to
perform to meet her goals?
•
What is the expected end result of using the product?

22. User Stories
Use Cases

23. User Stories
A simple description
template for the (one)
goal the user wants to
do with your product.
As a
I wan
(role
)
t to
so I c
do (w
an be
hat),
nefit
(how
).
As a tourist
I want to find the cheapest
public transport route
from Airport to my Hotel
so I can save money.

24. User Stories
User stories with clear conditions of satisfactions
Theme user stories
Theme user stories
Theme user stories
Theme user stories
Epic / Saga user stories
Adopted from Mike Cohn
Theme user stories
Theme user stories

25. Use Cases
A step-by-step
description of one
process, which helps the
user (and other actors)
to achieve a result.
Com
Use
pone
Case
nts:
, Acto
r s, St
eps

26. Use Cases
Example
Use Case – Search of the cheapest public transport route.
Actor – Tourist
Steps –
1. Specify “from” and “to” locations
2. Select day and time of a) arrival or b) departure
3. Show search results with the cheapest price first

27. As a side note...

28. Design issues
Elastic user
Fits opinions
Selfreferential
design
Edge cases
Inside jokes
Extremes

29. Today’s To Do
In your blog
1. Describe (1) primary persona
2. Write 1-2 scenarios based on persona’s goal
3. Write few user stories OR use cases based on the
scenario(s)

30. Reference
• Cooper, A., Reinmann, R., Cronin, D. (2007).
About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction
Design. England: Wiley
• Goodwin, Kim. 2001. “Perfecting Your
Personas.” Cooper Newsletter, July/August.