Taking the You Out of User: Application Development Using Personas

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• Summary
• Applications are developed by developers.
• Developers tend to focus on features and
  technical issues.
• Focus on the eventual user is lost in a sea of
  conflicting demands.
• Personas are a technique to create and maintain
  focus on the user by creating a virtual user
  that the developer can understand and create a
  relationship with and that can be kept in mind
  when making design decisions.

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• Benefits of Personas
• Provides external-focused target
• Enables developers to maintain focus
• Allows common agreement on goals
• Helps prioritize design and development efforts
• Allows a common reference point

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• Uses for Personas
• For surrogate user testing.
• To help advocate for your users.
• To communicate user needs.
• To evaluate new features.
• To help make design decisions.
• To help weigh business decisions.
• For task analysis and use cases.
• For customer service scripts.

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• What constitutes a Persona?
• Name
• Age
• Job Title
• Background
• Goals
• Photo
• Idea is to create a virtual user that can be
  kept in mind when making design decisions

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• How is a Persona created?
• User interviews
• Find commonality of themes
• Personas are not made up they are discovered from
  talking with users
• Personas are defined by goals
• Look at workflow and underlying needs

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas
Wendy is 24 years old. Wendy is a junior nurse at
a university hospital. Wendy graduated near the
top of her class. Wendy is cheerful and
enthusiastic about her job but often feels
overworked. She enjoys going out with friends and
playing with her dog, a Labrador retriever named
"Goldy". Wendy has grown up with computers and is
very comfortable using them. Wendy has a
high-speed broadband connection at home and uses
the Internet for shopping and dating sites like
Match.com. Wendy's goals are to have more freedom
and autonomy in her schedule.
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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• Primary and Secondary Personas
• Primary persona represents majority of users
  (example beginners)
• Secondary persona represents users not
  represented by primary persona (example experts)
• The primary personas needs come first

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• Objections to Personas
• Its weird
• Working around objections
• Give persona title rather than name
• Eliminate or minimize background information
• Use bullet points rather than narrative
• Dont use a photo
• No different than market segments
• Easier to keep in mind when working
• Richer, fuller concept

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Taking the You Out of User Application
Development Using Personas

• More Information Resources
• Bringing Your Personas to Life in Real Life
• http//www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/bringing_yo
  ur_personas_to_life_in_real_life.php
• Perfecting Your Personas
• http//www.cooper.com/newsletters/2001_07/perfecti
  ng_your_personas.htm
• Personas Matching a Design to the Users' Goals
• http//www.uie.com/articles/personas/
• An introduction to personas and how to create
  them
• http//steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_personas/
• Practical Persona Creation
• http//www.evolt.org/article/Practical_Persona_Cre
  ation/4090/56111/index.html