personas

Introduction to Personas

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Personas

• Informally developed by Alan Cooper in the early 1980s as a way to internalize the mindset of people who would eventually use a software. – “The persona is a powerful, multipurpose design tool that

helps overcome several problems that currently plague the development of digital products.” (Cooper, 1998)

• Helps model, summarize and communicate research about people who have been observed or researched in some way.

• Archetypal representations of audience segments, or user types. – Depicted as a specific person but is not a real individual;

rather, it is synthesized from observations of many people.

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Personas (2)

• Describe user characteristics that lead to different collections of needs and behaviors.

• Enables the designer to focus on a manageable and memorable cast of characters, instead of focusing on thousands of individuals.

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Personas: Example

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As Design

• Personas help designers: 1. Determine what a product should do and how it

should behave

2. Communicate with stakeholders, developers, and other designers

3. Build consensus and commitment to the design.

4. Measure the design’s effectiveness

5. Contribute to other product-related efforts such as marketing and sales plans (Cooper)

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Components

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How Are Personas Created

1. Interview and/or observe an adequate number of people.

2. Find patterns in the interviewees’ responses and actions, and use those to group similar people together.

3. Create archetypical models of those groups, based on the patterns found.

4. Drawing from that understanding of users and the model of that understanding, create user-centered designs.

5. Share those models with other team members and stakeholders.

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Research Methods

• Several research methods can provide data upon which we can build user archetypes, including – surveys

– ethnographic research

– interviews

– contextual inquiries

– web analytics

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• https://www.smashingma gazine.com/2014/08/a- closer-look-at-personas- part-1

• http://www.ux- lady.com/introduction-to- user-personas/

• http://www.ux- lady.com/diy-user- personas/

• http://SocialXYZ.com/res ources/persona- template.pptx

Resources

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Building the Persona

• Finding information for personas from:

– Stakeholders

• Service Learning Partners

– Internet

– Someone who may fit the persona

?

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Creating a Persona

• Minimum Requirements

– Context • What are we building?

– Photo

– Name

– Age

– Location

– Occupation

– Biography

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Optimal Content

• Education

• Salary

• Personal Quote

• Activities

• Technical Caps

• Social Comfort level

• Motivations

• Goals

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Basic Personas

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Advanced Personas

“I’m looking for a social game to help me meet new friends.”