Modeling Users: Personas and Goals

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Modeling UsersPersonas and Goals

• Cooper 5

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Topics

• Why Model?
• Personas
• Personas as a Design Tool
• Personas vs. User Roles
• Personas vs. Market Segments
• User vs. Non-User Personas

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Topics

• Goals
• User Goals
• Non-User Goals
• Constructing Personas
• Persona Types
• Other Models
• Questions Discussion

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Why Model?

• Represent complex structures, relationships
• Increased understanding, visualization
• Based on raw, observed behavior
• Synthesize data patterns

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Personas

• Help identify specific users and needs
• Identify primary, secondary users
• Helps choose the right individuals to design for

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Personas as a Design Tool

• Identify what the product should do
• Determine a products behavior
• Facilitates communication with stakeholders
• Builds consensus and commitment
• Measures design effectiveness

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Personas as a Design Tool

• Contributes to marketing and sales
• Help resolve
• Elastic user
• Self-referential design
• Design edge cases

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The Elastic User

• Each designer has own idea of end user
• User definition becomes elastic to fit designer
• Real users are not elastic

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Self-Referential Design

• Designers project own goals onto product
• We tend towards technology for its own sake

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Design Edge Cases

• Possible situations
• Usually not experienced by target personas
• Must be programmed for
• Not the design focus

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Personas are Based on Research

• Interviews with users
• Information from stakeholders
• Information from SMEs
• Market research data
• Market segmentation models
• Literature reviews

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Personas are Representedas Individuals

• User models treated as actual individuals
• Represented as specific individuals
• Considered as real users
• Represent classes of users in context
• Context specific

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Personas are Representedas Individuals

• Not reusable across products
• Not archetypes or stereotypes
• Do not represent an average user
• Represent user examples
• May have a collection or cast of personas for a
  product

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Personas vs. User Roles

• Some similarities
• Seek to describe relationships of users to
  products
• Roles are abstractions
• Personas address goals
• Personas are more holistic models

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Personas vs. Market Segments

• Market segments are based on
• Demographics
• Distribution channels
• Personas are based on
• Behaviors
• Goals

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User vs. Non-User Personas

• Non-user personas include
• Product reviewers
• Columnists
• IT Managers
• Purchasing agents
• Driven by business goals

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Goals

• Drivers behind user behaviors
• Addressed via tasks
• Provide answers to product usage motivation
• Inferred from qualitative data
• Expressed as simple sentence

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Types of Goals

• First priority in design
• Goals may be different for
• Organizations
• Employers
• Customers
• Partners
• End users

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User Goals

• Life goals
• Become an expert in my field
• Get promoted quickly
• Exhibit ethics and trust

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User Goals

• Experience goals
• Dont feel stupid
• Minimize or eliminate mistakes
• Feel competent and confident
• Enjoy the products use

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User Goals

• End goals
• Find the best price for a product
• Finalize a press release
• Process customer orders
• Create software

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Non-User Goals

• Customer
• Parents, relatives, friends
• IT Managers, purchasers, management
• Security
• Maintenance
• Customization
• Installation

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Non-User Goals

• Corporate
• Increase profit
• Increase market share
• Defeat competition
• Use resources efficiently
• Offer more products or services

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Non-User Goals

• Technical goals
• Minimize memory use
• Run in a browser
• Safeguard data
• Execute efficiently
• Cross platform usage/consistency

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Constructing Personas

• Incorporate information about
• Goals
• Attitudes
• Work or activity flow
• Environment
• Skills and levels
• Frustrations

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Constructing Personas

• Revisit the personal hypothesis
• Map interviews to behavioral variables
• Identify significant behavior patterns
• Synthesize characteristics and goals
• Check for completeness
• Develop narratives
• Designate types

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Revisit The Personal Hypothesis

• Compare patterns to assumptions
• Do not focus on demographics
• Behavioral variables are paramount
• 15 30 variables per role are typical

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Map Interviews To Behavioral Variables

• Map interviewee against variable range
• Precision is not critical
• Relative placement is the goal

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Mapping Subjects to Variables
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Identify Significant Behavior Patterns

• Clustering of subjects may ID persona
• Clustered behaviors must be causal

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Synthesize Characteristics And Relevant Goals

• Describe such things as
• Potential use environment
• Typical workday
• Current solutions
• Frustrations with existing systems
• Relevant relationships with others

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Check For Completeness

• Merge or separate personas
• Fill in gaps
• Insure distinctness and completeness

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Develop Narratives

• Third person narrative
• One to two pages
• Not a short story
• Introduces persona
• Sketches a day in the life
• Expresses personas product expectations

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Designate Types

• Primary Personas
• Secondary Personas
• Supplemental Personas
• Customer Personas
• Served Personas
• Negative Personas

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Primary Personas

• Primary target for interface design
• Multiple interfaces for multiple primary personas
  are possible
• Not satisfied by designs targeted to any other
  persona
• Compare goals of different personas

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Secondary Personas

• May be satisfied by 1 or 2 additions
• Address needs without impeding primary
• Typically, 0 - 2

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Supplemental Personas

• Satisfied by primary personas interface
• May be peripheral stakeholders

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Customer Personas

• Not end users
• Treated a secondary
• May be primary personas

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Served Personas

• Not product users
• Directly affected by products use
• Served by interface

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Negative Personas

• Non-users
• Purely rhetorical
• Communicates who is not the design target

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Other Models

• Workflow or sequence reflect
• Process initiation
• Information produced and consumed
• Decisions
• Actions

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Other Models

• Artifact models
• Online or paper forms
• Capture commonalities and differences
• Useful to ID best practices
• Physical models
• Focus on layout

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Questions Discussion