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An introduction to personas

An introduction to personas. UCD Hoorcollege blok 1 week 6. Learning goals. By the end of the colleges and reading you should: Understand what a persona is in UCD Know how the advantages of personas Be able to create a primary persona for a specific product or user problem

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An introduction to personas

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  1. An introduction to personas UCD Hoorcollege blok 1 week 6

  2. Learning goals • By the end of the colleges and reading you should: • Understand what a persona is in UCD • Know how the advantages of personas • Be able to create a primary persona for a specific product or user problem • Have created a persona based on user observation and interviews

  3. Agenda • What are personas? • Why use personas? • Creating personas • Summary

  4. What are personas?

  5. Personas are fictional archetypes but based on research into real users

  6. (In reality you create more than one persona)

  7. Archetype: A very typical example of a person or thing Source: Oxford English Dictionary Oervorm, oerbeeld => grondvorm Source: Van Dale Stereotype: A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing Source: Oxford English Dictionary Vastliggend beeld, karakterisering Source: Van Dale Personas are archetypes not stereotypes

  8. Definition of persona (for UCD) A persona is a fictional archetype created by organizations for use in the development of products (especially software and online products). Personas are based on ethnographic research into users and should not be “made-up” by UCD teams. The use of ethnographic research helps the creation of a number of archetype users that can be used to develop products that deliver positive user experiences. By feeding in real data, ethnographic research allows UCD teams to avoid generating stereotype users, that may bear no relation to the actual user’s reality. Source: Charlie Mulholland

  9. Why use personas?

  10. The problems of product development

  11. The advantage of personas

  12. Advantages of personas • UCD teams carry-out research • Allow checking the (filtered) information from other stakeholders • Provide an alternative “grounding” point • Encourage story-telling • Allow role-playing • Communication • Internal within team • External with other stakeholders • Generate commitment

  13. Risks • You get it wrong in research • Wrong user paradigm • Poor interpretation of ethnographic research • You do not obtain “buy-in” to your personas • Within your team • With other stakeholders Quality of research and believability are key here

  14. Creating personas

  15. Persona creation process

  16. Goals and personas • Understanding user goals are essential to developing products • To be effective personas must have goals based on the real goals your interview subjects had • Alan Cooper identifies 3 types of user goals (About Face 2.0) • Life goals • Experience goals • End goals

  17. Types of user goals The aim of a UCD process is to allow the user to achieve their end goals and have a good experience while doing this

  18. Persona types • If you have created a number of persona hypotheses and interviewed all of them, you will have more than one type of user • This is exactly what you want to achieve • Cooper identifies 6 persona types • Primary user • Secondary user • Supplemental user • Customer • Served user • Negative

  19. Behaviours • Behaviours (gedragen) are ways that people act when they use the product • Examples of behaviours for a phone: • What do they use if for? • What functions do they use? Where do they keep their phone? • Where do they use their phone? • When do they use it? • Do they use the help function / manuals or do they learn by trail and error? • How comfortable are they using it? • Do they get frustrated? • Do they show it off? • Etc…

  20. Using behaviours • Behaviours are based on the ways your research subjects • Behaviours describe how a persona will react when they use the product to achieve their goals • When we create scenarios we will use the behaviours to help us construct realistic stories • Behaviours are essential to make a persona usable

  21. Persona types

  22. The blok assignment will focus on primary personas

  23. Summary • Personas are archetypes (not stereotypes) that are based on ethnographic research • Personas are a powerful tool as they ensure research, aid communication and build commitment • Personas must have experience and end goals • The aim of UCD is to allow user end goals to be met while ensuring that their experience goals are not forgotten • To be useful a persona must also have behaviours that reflect how your research subjects act when they use the product • You develop different persona types, but you develop a product for the primary persona • In the blok assignment you only need to develop a primary persona

  24. Next week • We will be looking at how to put personas into use via scenarios • Please make sure your primary persona is finished

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