A talk about personas

1. What’s the Deal with Personas?
Ramya
UX Architect at Cardinal Solutions
@rams_mahalingam

2. PERSONA
A persona is a fictional description
of a standard user of a product.

3. we’re not designing
for ourselves

13. EMPATHY

14. EMPATHY
JUDGEMENT

15. R.I.P.

16. The way we make personas isn’t working

17. 3 things happen

18. 1.
comfort

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

22. 2.
labels

25. the descriptors of our humans

26. gender

27. gender
age

28. gender
age
name

29. 3.
bias

31. normal

32. "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

33. 1.
comfort

34. 1.
comfort
2.
labels

35. 1.
comfort
2.
labels
3.
bias

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

37. person-nah’s?

38. JTBD

40. A 2-pronged Approach

41. Recognize and challenge your unconscious bias

42. a single story

44. Shift the focus of the persona

45. Market Segments

46. Personas

47. Personas

48. goalsmarket segments

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

50. Reframe
“How will this affect the way they use the product?”
63 years old larger font size
Qualitative Research

51. Personas are Intersectional

55. why bother?

56. 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