Personas

1
Personas Interviewing

• Steve Chenoweth Chandan Rupakheti
• RHIT
• Chapter 10 - Requirements Text
• Links to Personas refs on the web

Dorte is 53 years old and works as a secretary in
her husbands plumbing business in the suburbs of
Copenhagen. There are 5-6 assistants and
apprentices in the company.
Quiz 3a, Question 10
2
Outline

• Mistakes to avoid
• Before the interview
• Questions

3
Most Common Mistake

• Lack of preparation
• Bias

4
Context Free Questions

• Who is the user?
• Who is the customer?
• Are their needs different?
• Where else can a solution to this problem be
  found?

Quiz 3a, Question 1
5
Outline

• Mistakes to avoid
• Before the interview
• Questions

6
Where Should You Hold an Interview?

• Non-threatening environment
• Customer's turf?
• Room large enough for group
• Free from distractions

7
Interview Preparation

• Do some research
• Prepare questions
• Prepare agenda
• Select roles
• Note taker
• Questioners
• Dont stop the user when they are trying to
  answer a question, dont just follow the script,
  try and establish a rapport.

Question 2
8
Interview Phases

• Establish user profile
• Assess the problem
• Understand the environment
• Recap for understanding
• Analyst's inputs
• Assess solution
• Assess opportunity
• Assess reliability, performance
• Other requirements
• Wrap-up

9
Outline

• Mistakes to avoid
• Before the interview
• Questions
• See Fig 10-1 in the Requirements book
• Requirements engineers should all know standard
  questions like these, which are good things to
  ask in many interviews. E.g.,
• How will the software be distributed?
• Is this the real problem?
• How do you solve it now?

10
1. Establish User Profile

• Do some research first
• Determine background of interviewee
• Find out what will constitute success or failure

11
Personas in software engineering

• Personas or personae are fictitious characters
  that are created to represent the different user
  types within a targeted demographic that might
  use a site or product.
• Used in HCI, Will they be useful for us? Why,
  If yes How?

Right Examples of personas used by IBM in
development of mobile apps by an IT organization.
Identifying roles is not good enough. You have
to feel like you know a user personally as you
develop their software. Ethnographic studies are
now common.
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2. Assess the Problem

• Find out what the problems are
• How are problems addressed now?

13
3. Understand the Environment

• Find out about the users
• Find out about the computing environment
• How much help will users need?

14
4. Recap for Understanding

• Paraphrase what you have heard so far
• Is anything missing?

15
5. Analyst's Inputs

• Ask about problems that you would expect to be
  present
• Rank these problems relative to others

16
6. Assess Solution

• What if ...
• How important would it be?

17
7. Assess Opportunity

• Determine the market for the solution
• Determine the value of the solution

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8. Assess Reliability and Performance

• Determine nonfunctional needs
• reliability
• performance
• support

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9. Other Requirements

• Any external requirements?
• Any other requirements not already mentioned?

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10. Wrap-up

• What should we have asked?
• How can we follow up?

21
Why Not A Questionnaire Instead?...

• After all, they can be done so much more
  efficiently!
• But
• Difficult to follow-up on responses
• Relevant questions cannot always be designed in
  advance.
• Advantages of interviews
• Personal Contact
• Interaction/Follow-ups

Questions 3-5