EXP 4
Student Name: firstName lastName
[A3 – Assignment 3]
i. Research and write what the Design Thinking framework says about Personas and User Stories.
a. Your Persona definitions must include a name, a role, and pain points.
i. Personas are evidence-based archetypes that generalize the role and context of a target user, their reasons, and their pain points. Design teams use the findings of interviews to create a persona profile in terms of name, role, and the frustrations that are most severe and impede success. The practice can assist teams in making the voice of the customer visible when deciding on prioritized features and trade-offs
b. Your User Story definitions must include a persona name, the actions the Persona wishes to perform, and the Persona’s goal.
i. User stories help in the conversion of the needs of the persona into brief requirements statements expressed from the user's perspective. A powerful user story identifies the persona, identifies what that persona wishes to do, and why that goal or value will eliminate the pain point. User stories allow teams to coordinate business and technical stakeholders in building and why
ii. Interview recap. Refer to your client interview in A2 and recapitulate your A2 interview by providing the company name (who you interviewed), the primary company product/service (what they do), the company’s Fintech need (what business goal the company wishes to achieve with the Fintech product/service), and the decision-making role of the person you interviewed.
a. Company name: Worldpay
b. Company product/service: Merchant payment processing with built-in fraud monitoring and transaction reporting for businesses that accept card and digital payments.
c. Fintech need: Improve secure and reliable payment acceptance at scale by reducing fraud losses and chargebacks while also minimizing false declines and friction during checkout.
d. Interviewee role: Ericka Sampey, Senior Fraud Detection Analyst. She reviews flagged transactions and supports ricks decisions that protects merchants and Worldpay.
iii. Identify pain points for three Personas. Write the Persona’s name, role, and pain points in the User Stories. Pain points are the problems or issues that the Persona would like you to solve for them. A user story is a general explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user. Write the user story from the user's perspective and follow the format: “As [a user persona], I want [to perform this action] so that [I can accomplish this goal].” The user’s actions are intended to solve the Persona’s pain points. The learning objective is to create an appropriate Persona to depict the client’s market, represent the client's pain points in the intended actions, and confirm that the client's pain point is removed when the goal is accomplished.
a. Persona 1, User Story 1. As Maria, a small business owner and merchant client, I want real-time fraud alerts, simple dispute tools, and transparent fee and settlement reporting so that I can reduce chargebacks, avoid unexpected losses, and maintain healthy cash flow.
b. Persona 2, User Story 2. As Daniel, and e-commerce operations manager at a growing online retailer, I want a checkout that supports multiple payment methods, provides strong authentication, and provides clear decline reasons so that I can increase approval rates, reduce cart abandonment, and expand cross- border sales securely.
c. Persona 3, User Story 3. As Ericka, a senior fraud detection analyst at the payment processor, I want risk models that provide richer transaction context and explainable signals, with workflow automation, so that I can reduce manual reviews, lower false positives, and stop fraud faster without blocking legitimate customers.
iv. Research. Write a research question on the Fintech sector’s customer/competitor behavior, business processes, and innovations.
a. Based on what you learn in this assignment, write a one-paragraph research methodology on the Design Thinking framework approach of Personas and User Stories.
The empathetic method of design thinking is applied in this research by transforming the findings of the interviews into the form of structured personas and user stories. The interview notes will be initially coded to common themes associated with the needs of customers, business processes, and constraints of innovation, and subsequently clustered into three user segments. The personas that reveal the role of any segment, his/her motivation, and the most important pain points will be drafted next, and the user stories that relate each pain point to an action, which we want, and a quantifiable goal will be drafted. Lastly, ensuring that the personas and user stories are checked with the interviewee or another similar stakeholder, and developing them through refinement until they become accurate boundary objects in terms of requirements and prioritization.
b. Write a 30-50-word annotated bibliography for three references that serve as the literature review for your research methods.
Salminen, J., Wenyun Guan, K., Jung, S. G., & Jansen, B. (2022, April). Use cases for design personas: A systematic review and new frontiers. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–21). https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517589
The systematic review ensures that the applications of personas by researchers are synthesized in all design settings and that the gaps and common advantages are identified. The authors adopt a standardized review method and use a leading journal to present the information, which contributes to its credibility, yet the scope decisions may influence the conclusion. It helps me to justify the choice of personas and make my deliverables consistent with evidence-based practice.
Sporsem, T., Dingsøyr, T., & Stol, K. J. (2025). User stories as boundary objects in agile requirements engineering: A theoretical literature review. Journal of Systems and Software, 112693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.112693
This paper provides a systematic persona approach incorporating mixed data to justify eHealth design choices and reports on practical problems, including data quality. The journal and transparent procedures favor the credibility of the author, but the setting used might not be generalized. I apply it to empower my description of user evidence and persona validity.
Ten Klooster, I., Wentzel, J., Sieverink, F., Linssen, G., Wesselink, R., & van Gemert-Pijnen, L. (2022). Personas for better-targeted eHealth technologies: a user-centered design approach. JMIR human factors, 9(1), e24172. https://doi.org/10.2196/24172
This literature review describes how user stories can help in the transfer of knowledge across stakeholder boundaries and why some stories do not coordinate the work. The authors are in an authoritative software engineering journal and use a clear theoretical prism, although theoretical synthesis may inappropriately emphasize practitioner sensitivity. I rely on it as a source of linking my sections of requirements to stakeholder communication.
v. Confirm your assignment is named “A3 first & last name” and submitted at the following three locations:
a. Discussion Group: Share with the entire class in the discussion forum. This is where everyone can see the class work as a whole and gain value from the class. Navigate to the discussion group board and submit.
b. Group locker: Share with your group and engage in group discussions and brainstorming.
c. Assignment link: Submit your work for grading in the assignment link. Here, you must upload both the assignment and the screenshots. Submit one per group in the assignment link. Include a screenshot confirming that the group work is shared with your group and the entire class.
vi. Rubric: Review and confirm you have completed all rubric items below. Notice the penalty listed in the rubric.
a. Template: “A3 Template” is provided for this assignment. You will find all templates in the “Class Resources” folder under the Table of Contents on the course website. Download the “A3 Template”, save it as “A3 first & last name”, keep all template information except the highlighted portions, and replace the highlighted portions with your answers. There is a 50% penalty (-50 points) for failure to follow the template.
b. Submission: Confirm your submission in the three locations mentioned above: group discussion, group locker, and assignment link. There is a 50% penalty (-50 points) for failure to follow these submission instructions.
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Rubric for Assignment 3 (A3) |
Possible Points |
Points Scored |
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The submission highlights the client’s pain points articulated in the form of Personas and User Stories. |
10 |
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The pain points are derived from the interviews, and they reflect the business’s Fintech needs. The Personas and User Stories capture the Design Thinking framework's goal of the Voice of the Customer. |
30 |
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The submission has captured the client’s need in a pain point, identified a solution action to address the pain point, and the goal confirms that the pain point will be removed. |
30 |
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The submission has articulated an academic research method, citations, and an annotated bibliography. |
30 |
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Total |
100 |
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The submission uses the template for this assignment. The template is in the “Class Resources” folder in D2L. [50% penalty for failing to adhere to the template.] |
-50 |
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Upload and share your assignment to the entire class (in the group discussion), your class group (in the group locker), and for grading (in the assignment link). Share a screenshot of your submission to confirm. [50% penalty if screenshot confirmation is not uploaded in the D2L assignment link.] |
-50 |
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