Guide to Creating Website Personas

GUIDE TO CREATING PERSONAS "Today's consumers are demanding more from companies. Customers expect products, services, & information that are timely & catered to their specific needs & desires." KEVIN O'CONNOR What Are Personas? - Personas are hypothetical archetypes, or "stand-ins" for actual users that drive the decision making for interface design projects. Personas are not real people, but they represent real people throughout the design process. - Personas are not "made up"; they are discovered as a by-product of the investigative process. Although personas are imaginary, they are defined with significant vigor and precision. - Names and personal details are made up for personas to make them more realistic. - Personas are defined by their goals. - Interfaces are built to satisfy personas' needs and goals. Essential Details for Defining Personas HELLO JOE 21 A NAME CA REAL NAME LIKE GREG OR MADELINE) PERSONAL INFO, INCLUDING FAMILY AND HOME LIFE A PHOTO COMPUTER PROFICIENCY & COMFORT CANDID QUOTES AGE LEVEL WITH USING HE WEB > WORK ENVIRONMENT CTHE TOOLS USED AND THE CONDITIONS WORKED UNDER, RATHER THAN A JOB DESCRIPTION) > PET PEEVES AND TECHNICAL FRUSTRATIONS > ATTITUDES > MOTIVATION OR "TRIGGER" FOR USING A HIGH-TECH PROODUCT (NOT JUST TASKS, BUT END RESULTS) > INFORMATION-SEEKING HABITS AND FAVORITE RESOURCES > PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GOALS "As the marketplace shifts from a mass manufacturing to a mass customization model, customers needs and desires are more accurately identified through the development of personas rather than through demographic data." KEVIN O'CONNOR 10 STEPS TO CREATING PERSONAS 1. Define the problem that you want personas to help solve. For example, "These personas will help us understand people's behaviors around exchanging electronic documents, to help us design a website for that activity." It may be tempting, but try to avoid general statements such as "help us understand our customers better." What specifically do you want to learn? 2. Identify the people you need to study in order to understand the problem you defined. Best practices in persona development require you to spend time face-to-face with current or potential customers. To plan for this, you need some model of the market to help identify the people you'll want to recruit. Customer segmentation models from marketing can be a useful input for this step. 3. Get into the field and meet the people you identified. Interview them, ask for demonstrations, and observe the environment in which they would use your product or service. Augment this with information from other sources such as subject matter experts, articles, blogs, and market research studies. Be sure to do some research beforehand to get a basic understanding of the domain, as you'll learn more in the field if you're already up to speed on some basics. 4. Compile your observations from each customer visit. Focus on observations that in your mind are defining characteristics of each person whom you visited, given the problem domain you're studying. Mark each observation with its source: for example, "Sends documents only as email attachments. Never prints and mails them. [Participant #9]" 5. Arrange observations into categories. Form categories of observations about the same topic or issue. For example: project size, overall goals, volume of email sent, and so on. Methods such as affinity diagramming are excellent for this step, particularly when you're working with others who may have assisted with the research. I recommend printing your observations onto removable labels so it's easy to cover a wall or whiteboard with them. 6. Identify findings within categories. Look inside each category to find patterns in the observations you collected. For example, it may be clear in a category such as "project size" that you have a group of people who manage projects under $5000, and another who manages projects of $100K or more. 7. Cluster the findings into coherent groups. For each of the specific findings you identified, ask yourself two questions: "Which other findings seem to always occur with this one? And which seem to never occur with it?" For example, what are the other characteristics of someone who manages projects under $5000? This is why it's helpful on each observation to indicate its source, e.g. participant #9. These questions help you form groups of findings that belong together based on what you learned from research. Those groups become the foundations of your personas. 8. Develop complete personas from the groups you identified. Fill them out with details from your research to create a more complete picture of that person. For an example of the end result, see my earlier blog post about an example persona used in the design of a web application. 9. Introduce the personas to your organization or project team. Describe the scope of your research and the process you followed during analysis; this often raises people's confidence in what you're reporting. Provide everyone with a personal copy of each persona. 10. Put the personas to work. Help your team understand how personas can play a role in activities such as design, development, and marketing. When people talk about "the user," challenge them to clarify which specific persona they're talking about. 10.5. Utilization Personas can and should be shared and utilized across the entire organization, and within various product development, marketing, customer support, and sales departments. TIPS FOR DEVELOPING USEFUL PERSONAS Pull together a 1 to 2 page precise narrative description for each persona. Identify workflow and daily behavioral patterns, using specific details, not generalities. Detail two or three technical skills to give an idea of computer competency. Include one or two ficțional details about the persona's life - an interest or a habit - that make each persona unique and memorable. Don't use someone you actually know as a persona; create a composite based on interviews and research data. For a new project, don't recycle a persona from a previous project; interview and create new personas for each project. Keep the number of personas created for a project relatively small - usually between three and seven, depending on the interface project. Develop a believable archetype so the design team will accept the persona. 10 BENEFITS OF PERSONAS 1. A better understanding of customers. Using personas helps the team focus on the users' goals and needs. The 2. Shorter design cycles. team can concentrate on designing a 3. Improved product quality. manageable set of personas knowing they represent the needs of many 4. Users' goals and needs become a common users. By always asking, "Would Jim point of focus for the team. use this?" the team can avoid the 5. The team can concentrate on designing for trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. a manageable set of personas knowing that they represent the needs of many users. Many companies including Ford Motor 6. They are relatively quick to develop and Company, Microsoft, and Staples replace the need to canvass the whole develop and use personas and they user community and spend months report many benefits from doing gathering user requirements. so,including: 7. They help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. 8. Design and marketing efforts can be prioritized based on the personas. 9. Disagreements over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the personas. 10. Designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests. "In our modern digital environment, all businesses have a great competitive need for creative thinking that far exceeds our industrial forebears. In the quest for an institutional source of creativity, the brainstorming session, where several people meet to have fresh ideas, has emerged as the front runner." ALAN COOPER USABILITY.GOV INFOTODAY.COM UXMAG.COM/ COOPER.COM ELINCHPINSEO CHOPSTICKER.COM GUIDE TO CREATING PERSONAS "Today's consumers are demanding more from companies. Customers expect products, services, & information that are timely & catered to their specific needs & desires." KEVIN O'CONNOR What Are Personas? - Personas are hypothetical archetypes, or "stand-ins" for actual users that drive the decision making for interface design projects. Personas are not real people, but they represent real people throughout the design process. - Personas are not "made up"; they are discovered as a by-product of the investigative process. Although personas are imaginary, they are defined with significant vigor and precision. - Names and personal details are made up for personas to make them more realistic. - Personas are defined by their goals. - Interfaces are built to satisfy personas' needs and goals. Essential Details for Defining Personas HELLO JOE 21 A NAME CA REAL NAME LIKE GREG OR MADELINE) PERSONAL INFO, INCLUDING FAMILY AND HOME LIFE A PHOTO COMPUTER PROFICIENCY & COMFORT CANDID QUOTES AGE LEVEL WITH USING HE WEB > WORK ENVIRONMENT CTHE TOOLS USED AND THE CONDITIONS WORKED UNDER, RATHER THAN A JOB DESCRIPTION) > PET PEEVES AND TECHNICAL FRUSTRATIONS > ATTITUDES > MOTIVATION OR "TRIGGER" FOR USING A HIGH-TECH PROODUCT (NOT JUST TASKS, BUT END RESULTS) > INFORMATION-SEEKING HABITS AND FAVORITE RESOURCES > PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GOALS "As the marketplace shifts from a mass manufacturing to a mass customization model, customers needs and desires are more accurately identified through the development of personas rather than through demographic data." KEVIN O'CONNOR 10 STEPS TO CREATING PERSONAS 1. Define the problem that you want personas to help solve. For example, "These personas will help us understand people's behaviors around exchanging electronic documents, to help us design a website for that activity." It may be tempting, but try to avoid general statements such as "help us understand our customers better." What specifically do you want to learn? 2. Identify the people you need to study in order to understand the problem you defined. Best practices in persona development require you to spend time face-to-face with current or potential customers. To plan for this, you need some model of the market to help identify the people you'll want to recruit. Customer segmentation models from marketing can be a useful input for this step. 3. Get into the field and meet the people you identified. Interview them, ask for demonstrations, and observe the environment in which they would use your product or service. Augment this with information from other sources such as subject matter experts, articles, blogs, and market research studies. Be sure to do some research beforehand to get a basic understanding of the domain, as you'll learn more in the field if you're already up to speed on some basics. 4. Compile your observations from each customer visit. Focus on observations that in your mind are defining characteristics of each person whom you visited, given the problem domain you're studying. Mark each observation with its source: for example, "Sends documents only as email attachments. Never prints and mails them. [Participant #9]" 5. Arrange observations into categories. Form categories of observations about the same topic or issue. For example: project size, overall goals, volume of email sent, and so on. Methods such as affinity diagramming are excellent for this step, particularly when you're working with others who may have assisted with the research. I recommend printing your observations onto removable labels so it's easy to cover a wall or whiteboard with them. 6. Identify findings within categories. Look inside each category to find patterns in the observations you collected. For example, it may be clear in a category such as "project size" that you have a group of people who manage projects under $5000, and another who manages projects of $100K or more. 7. Cluster the findings into coherent groups. For each of the specific findings you identified, ask yourself two questions: "Which other findings seem to always occur with this one? And which seem to never occur with it?" For example, what are the other characteristics of someone who manages projects under $5000? This is why it's helpful on each observation to indicate its source, e.g. participant #9. These questions help you form groups of findings that belong together based on what you learned from research. Those groups become the foundations of your personas. 8. Develop complete personas from the groups you identified. Fill them out with details from your research to create a more complete picture of that person. For an example of the end result, see my earlier blog post about an example persona used in the design of a web application. 9. Introduce the personas to your organization or project team. Describe the scope of your research and the process you followed during analysis; this often raises people's confidence in what you're reporting. Provide everyone with a personal copy of each persona. 10. Put the personas to work. Help your team understand how personas can play a role in activities such as design, development, and marketing. When people talk about "the user," challenge them to clarify which specific persona they're talking about. 10.5. Utilization Personas can and should be shared and utilized across the entire organization, and within various product development, marketing, customer support, and sales departments. TIPS FOR DEVELOPING USEFUL PERSONAS Pull together a 1 to 2 page precise narrative description for each persona. Identify workflow and daily behavioral patterns, using specific details, not generalities. Detail two or three technical skills to give an idea of computer competency. Include one or two ficțional details about the persona's life - an interest or a habit - that make each persona unique and memorable. Don't use someone you actually know as a persona; create a composite based on interviews and research data. For a new project, don't recycle a persona from a previous project; interview and create new personas for each project. Keep the number of personas created for a project relatively small - usually between three and seven, depending on the interface project. Develop a believable archetype so the design team will accept the persona. 10 BENEFITS OF PERSONAS 1. A better understanding of customers. Using personas helps the team focus on the users' goals and needs. The 2. Shorter design cycles. team can concentrate on designing a 3. Improved product quality. manageable set of personas knowing they represent the needs of many 4. Users' goals and needs become a common users. By always asking, "Would Jim point of focus for the team. use this?" the team can avoid the 5. The team can concentrate on designing for trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. a manageable set of personas knowing that they represent the needs of many users. Many companies including Ford Motor 6. They are relatively quick to develop and Company, Microsoft, and Staples replace the need to canvass the whole develop and use personas and they user community and spend months report many benefits from doing gathering user requirements. so,including: 7. They help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. 8. Design and marketing efforts can be prioritized based on the personas. 9. Disagreements over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the personas. 10. Designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests. "In our modern digital environment, all businesses have a great competitive need for creative thinking that far exceeds our industrial forebears. In the quest for an institutional source of creativity, the brainstorming session, where several people meet to have fresh ideas, has emerged as the front runner." ALAN COOPER USABILITY.GOV INFOTODAY.COM UXMAG.COM/ COOPER.COM ELINCHPINSEO CHOPSTICKER.COM GUIDE TO CREATING PERSONAS "Today's consumers are demanding more from companies. Customers expect products, services, & information that are timely & catered to their specific needs & desires." KEVIN O'CONNOR What Are Personas? - Personas are hypothetical archetypes, or "stand-ins" for actual users that drive the decision making for interface design projects. Personas are not real people, but they represent real people throughout the design process. - Personas are not "made up"; they are discovered as a by-product of the investigative process. Although personas are imaginary, they are defined with significant vigor and precision. - Names and personal details are made up for personas to make them more realistic. - Personas are defined by their goals. - Interfaces are built to satisfy personas' needs and goals. Essential Details for Defining Personas HELLO JOE 21 A NAME CA REAL NAME LIKE GREG OR MADELINE) PERSONAL INFO, INCLUDING FAMILY AND HOME LIFE A PHOTO COMPUTER PROFICIENCY & COMFORT CANDID QUOTES AGE LEVEL WITH USING HE WEB > WORK ENVIRONMENT CTHE TOOLS USED AND THE CONDITIONS WORKED UNDER, RATHER THAN A JOB DESCRIPTION) > PET PEEVES AND TECHNICAL FRUSTRATIONS > ATTITUDES > MOTIVATION OR "TRIGGER" FOR USING A HIGH-TECH PROODUCT (NOT JUST TASKS, BUT END RESULTS) > INFORMATION-SEEKING HABITS AND FAVORITE RESOURCES > PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GOALS "As the marketplace shifts from a mass manufacturing to a mass customization model, customers needs and desires are more accurately identified through the development of personas rather than through demographic data." KEVIN O'CONNOR 10 STEPS TO CREATING PERSONAS 1. Define the problem that you want personas to help solve. For example, "These personas will help us understand people's behaviors around exchanging electronic documents, to help us design a website for that activity." It may be tempting, but try to avoid general statements such as "help us understand our customers better." What specifically do you want to learn? 2. Identify the people you need to study in order to understand the problem you defined. Best practices in persona development require you to spend time face-to-face with current or potential customers. To plan for this, you need some model of the market to help identify the people you'll want to recruit. Customer segmentation models from marketing can be a useful input for this step. 3. Get into the field and meet the people you identified. Interview them, ask for demonstrations, and observe the environment in which they would use your product or service. Augment this with information from other sources such as subject matter experts, articles, blogs, and market research studies. Be sure to do some research beforehand to get a basic understanding of the domain, as you'll learn more in the field if you're already up to speed on some basics. 4. Compile your observations from each customer visit. Focus on observations that in your mind are defining characteristics of each person whom you visited, given the problem domain you're studying. Mark each observation with its source: for example, "Sends documents only as email attachments. Never prints and mails them. [Participant #9]" 5. Arrange observations into categories. Form categories of observations about the same topic or issue. For example: project size, overall goals, volume of email sent, and so on. Methods such as affinity diagramming are excellent for this step, particularly when you're working with others who may have assisted with the research. I recommend printing your observations onto removable labels so it's easy to cover a wall or whiteboard with them. 6. Identify findings within categories. Look inside each category to find patterns in the observations you collected. For example, it may be clear in a category such as "project size" that you have a group of people who manage projects under $5000, and another who manages projects of $100K or more. 7. Cluster the findings into coherent groups. For each of the specific findings you identified, ask yourself two questions: "Which other findings seem to always occur with this one? And which seem to never occur with it?" For example, what are the other characteristics of someone who manages projects under $5000? This is why it's helpful on each observation to indicate its source, e.g. participant #9. These questions help you form groups of findings that belong together based on what you learned from research. Those groups become the foundations of your personas. 8. Develop complete personas from the groups you identified. Fill them out with details from your research to create a more complete picture of that person. For an example of the end result, see my earlier blog post about an example persona used in the design of a web application. 9. Introduce the personas to your organization or project team. Describe the scope of your research and the process you followed during analysis; this often raises people's confidence in what you're reporting. Provide everyone with a personal copy of each persona. 10. Put the personas to work. Help your team understand how personas can play a role in activities such as design, development, and marketing. When people talk about "the user," challenge them to clarify which specific persona they're talking about. 10.5. Utilization Personas can and should be shared and utilized across the entire organization, and within various product development, marketing, customer support, and sales departments. TIPS FOR DEVELOPING USEFUL PERSONAS Pull together a 1 to 2 page precise narrative description for each persona. Identify workflow and daily behavioral patterns, using specific details, not generalities. Detail two or three technical skills to give an idea of computer competency. Include one or two ficțional details about the persona's life - an interest or a habit - that make each persona unique and memorable. Don't use someone you actually know as a persona; create a composite based on interviews and research data. For a new project, don't recycle a persona from a previous project; interview and create new personas for each project. Keep the number of personas created for a project relatively small - usually between three and seven, depending on the interface project. Develop a believable archetype so the design team will accept the persona. 10 BENEFITS OF PERSONAS 1. A better understanding of customers. Using personas helps the team focus on the users' goals and needs. The 2. Shorter design cycles. team can concentrate on designing a 3. Improved product quality. manageable set of personas knowing they represent the needs of many 4. Users' goals and needs become a common users. By always asking, "Would Jim point of focus for the team. use this?" the team can avoid the 5. The team can concentrate on designing for trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. a manageable set of personas knowing that they represent the needs of many users. Many companies including Ford Motor 6. They are relatively quick to develop and Company, Microsoft, and Staples replace the need to canvass the whole develop and use personas and they user community and spend months report many benefits from doing gathering user requirements. so,including: 7. They help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. 8. Design and marketing efforts can be prioritized based on the personas. 9. Disagreements over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the personas. 10. Designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests. "In our modern digital environment, all businesses have a great competitive need for creative thinking that far exceeds our industrial forebears. In the quest for an institutional source of creativity, the brainstorming session, where several people meet to have fresh ideas, has emerged as the front runner." ALAN COOPER USABILITY.GOV INFOTODAY.COM UXMAG.COM/ COOPER.COM ELINCHPINSEO CHOPSTICKER.COM GUIDE TO CREATING PERSONAS "Today's consumers are demanding more from companies. Customers expect products, services, & information that are timely & catered to their specific needs & desires." KEVIN O'CONNOR What Are Personas? - Personas are hypothetical archetypes, or "stand-ins" for actual users that drive the decision making for interface design projects. Personas are not real people, but they represent real people throughout the design process. - Personas are not "made up"; they are discovered as a by-product of the investigative process. Although personas are imaginary, they are defined with significant vigor and precision. - Names and personal details are made up for personas to make them more realistic. - Personas are defined by their goals. - Interfaces are built to satisfy personas' needs and goals. Essential Details for Defining Personas HELLO JOE 21 A NAME CA REAL NAME LIKE GREG OR MADELINE) PERSONAL INFO, INCLUDING FAMILY AND HOME LIFE A PHOTO COMPUTER PROFICIENCY & COMFORT CANDID QUOTES AGE LEVEL WITH USING HE WEB > WORK ENVIRONMENT CTHE TOOLS USED AND THE CONDITIONS WORKED UNDER, RATHER THAN A JOB DESCRIPTION) > PET PEEVES AND TECHNICAL FRUSTRATIONS > ATTITUDES > MOTIVATION OR "TRIGGER" FOR USING A HIGH-TECH PROODUCT (NOT JUST TASKS, BUT END RESULTS) > INFORMATION-SEEKING HABITS AND FAVORITE RESOURCES > PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GOALS "As the marketplace shifts from a mass manufacturing to a mass customization model, customers needs and desires are more accurately identified through the development of personas rather than through demographic data." KEVIN O'CONNOR 10 STEPS TO CREATING PERSONAS 1. Define the problem that you want personas to help solve. For example, "These personas will help us understand people's behaviors around exchanging electronic documents, to help us design a website for that activity." It may be tempting, but try to avoid general statements such as "help us understand our customers better." What specifically do you want to learn? 2. Identify the people you need to study in order to understand the problem you defined. Best practices in persona development require you to spend time face-to-face with current or potential customers. To plan for this, you need some model of the market to help identify the people you'll want to recruit. Customer segmentation models from marketing can be a useful input for this step. 3. Get into the field and meet the people you identified. Interview them, ask for demonstrations, and observe the environment in which they would use your product or service. Augment this with information from other sources such as subject matter experts, articles, blogs, and market research studies. Be sure to do some research beforehand to get a basic understanding of the domain, as you'll learn more in the field if you're already up to speed on some basics. 4. Compile your observations from each customer visit. Focus on observations that in your mind are defining characteristics of each person whom you visited, given the problem domain you're studying. Mark each observation with its source: for example, "Sends documents only as email attachments. Never prints and mails them. [Participant #9]" 5. Arrange observations into categories. Form categories of observations about the same topic or issue. For example: project size, overall goals, volume of email sent, and so on. Methods such as affinity diagramming are excellent for this step, particularly when you're working with others who may have assisted with the research. I recommend printing your observations onto removable labels so it's easy to cover a wall or whiteboard with them. 6. Identify findings within categories. Look inside each category to find patterns in the observations you collected. For example, it may be clear in a category such as "project size" that you have a group of people who manage projects under $5000, and another who manages projects of $100K or more. 7. Cluster the findings into coherent groups. For each of the specific findings you identified, ask yourself two questions: "Which other findings seem to always occur with this one? And which seem to never occur with it?" For example, what are the other characteristics of someone who manages projects under $5000? This is why it's helpful on each observation to indicate its source, e.g. participant #9. These questions help you form groups of findings that belong together based on what you learned from research. Those groups become the foundations of your personas. 8. Develop complete personas from the groups you identified. Fill them out with details from your research to create a more complete picture of that person. For an example of the end result, see my earlier blog post about an example persona used in the design of a web application. 9. Introduce the personas to your organization or project team. Describe the scope of your research and the process you followed during analysis; this often raises people's confidence in what you're reporting. Provide everyone with a personal copy of each persona. 10. Put the personas to work. Help your team understand how personas can play a role in activities such as design, development, and marketing. When people talk about "the user," challenge them to clarify which specific persona they're talking about. 10.5. Utilization Personas can and should be shared and utilized across the entire organization, and within various product development, marketing, customer support, and sales departments. TIPS FOR DEVELOPING USEFUL PERSONAS Pull together a 1 to 2 page precise narrative description for each persona. Identify workflow and daily behavioral patterns, using specific details, not generalities. Detail two or three technical skills to give an idea of computer competency. Include one or two ficțional details about the persona's life - an interest or a habit - that make each persona unique and memorable. Don't use someone you actually know as a persona; create a composite based on interviews and research data. For a new project, don't recycle a persona from a previous project; interview and create new personas for each project. Keep the number of personas created for a project relatively small - usually between three and seven, depending on the interface project. Develop a believable archetype so the design team will accept the persona. 10 BENEFITS OF PERSONAS 1. A better understanding of customers. Using personas helps the team focus on the users' goals and needs. The 2. Shorter design cycles. team can concentrate on designing a 3. Improved product quality. manageable set of personas knowing they represent the needs of many 4. Users' goals and needs become a common users. By always asking, "Would Jim point of focus for the team. use this?" the team can avoid the 5. The team can concentrate on designing for trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. a manageable set of personas knowing that they represent the needs of many users. Many companies including Ford Motor 6. They are relatively quick to develop and Company, Microsoft, and Staples replace the need to canvass the whole develop and use personas and they user community and spend months report many benefits from doing gathering user requirements. so,including: 7. They help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. 8. Design and marketing efforts can be prioritized based on the personas. 9. Disagreements over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the personas. 10. Designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests. "In our modern digital environment, all businesses have a great competitive need for creative thinking that far exceeds our industrial forebears. In the quest for an institutional source of creativity, the brainstorming session, where several people meet to have fresh ideas, has emerged as the front runner." ALAN COOPER USABILITY.GOV INFOTODAY.COM UXMAG.COM/ COOPER.COM ELINCHPINSEO CHOPSTICKER.COM GUIDE TO CREATING PERSONAS "Today's consumers are demanding more from companies. Customers expect products, services, & information that are timely & catered to their specific needs & desires." KEVIN O'CONNOR What Are Personas? - Personas are hypothetical archetypes, or "stand-ins" for actual users that drive the decision making for interface design projects. Personas are not real people, but they represent real people throughout the design process. - Personas are not "made up"; they are discovered as a by-product of the investigative process. Although personas are imaginary, they are defined with significant vigor and precision. - Names and personal details are made up for personas to make them more realistic. - Personas are defined by their goals. - Interfaces are built to satisfy personas' needs and goals. Essential Details for Defining Personas HELLO JOE 21 A NAME CA REAL NAME LIKE GREG OR MADELINE) PERSONAL INFO, INCLUDING FAMILY AND HOME LIFE A PHOTO COMPUTER PROFICIENCY & COMFORT CANDID QUOTES AGE LEVEL WITH USING HE WEB > WORK ENVIRONMENT CTHE TOOLS USED AND THE CONDITIONS WORKED UNDER, RATHER THAN A JOB DESCRIPTION) > PET PEEVES AND TECHNICAL FRUSTRATIONS > ATTITUDES > MOTIVATION OR "TRIGGER" FOR USING A HIGH-TECH PROODUCT (NOT JUST TASKS, BUT END RESULTS) > INFORMATION-SEEKING HABITS AND FAVORITE RESOURCES > PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GOALS "As the marketplace shifts from a mass manufacturing to a mass customization model, customers needs and desires are more accurately identified through the development of personas rather than through demographic data." KEVIN O'CONNOR 10 STEPS TO CREATING PERSONAS 1. Define the problem that you want personas to help solve. For example, "These personas will help us understand people's behaviors around exchanging electronic documents, to help us design a website for that activity." It may be tempting, but try to avoid general statements such as "help us understand our customers better." What specifically do you want to learn? 2. Identify the people you need to study in order to understand the problem you defined. Best practices in persona development require you to spend time face-to-face with current or potential customers. To plan for this, you need some model of the market to help identify the people you'll want to recruit. Customer segmentation models from marketing can be a useful input for this step. 3. Get into the field and meet the people you identified. Interview them, ask for demonstrations, and observe the environment in which they would use your product or service. Augment this with information from other sources such as subject matter experts, articles, blogs, and market research studies. Be sure to do some research beforehand to get a basic understanding of the domain, as you'll learn more in the field if you're already up to speed on some basics. 4. Compile your observations from each customer visit. Focus on observations that in your mind are defining characteristics of each person whom you visited, given the problem domain you're studying. Mark each observation with its source: for example, "Sends documents only as email attachments. Never prints and mails them. [Participant #9]" 5. Arrange observations into categories. Form categories of observations about the same topic or issue. For example: project size, overall goals, volume of email sent, and so on. Methods such as affinity diagramming are excellent for this step, particularly when you're working with others who may have assisted with the research. I recommend printing your observations onto removable labels so it's easy to cover a wall or whiteboard with them. 6. Identify findings within categories. Look inside each category to find patterns in the observations you collected. For example, it may be clear in a category such as "project size" that you have a group of people who manage projects under $5000, and another who manages projects of $100K or more. 7. Cluster the findings into coherent groups. For each of the specific findings you identified, ask yourself two questions: "Which other findings seem to always occur with this one? And which seem to never occur with it?" For example, what are the other characteristics of someone who manages projects under $5000? This is why it's helpful on each observation to indicate its source, e.g. participant #9. These questions help you form groups of findings that belong together based on what you learned from research. Those groups become the foundations of your personas. 8. Develop complete personas from the groups you identified. Fill them out with details from your research to create a more complete picture of that person. For an example of the end result, see my earlier blog post about an example persona used in the design of a web application. 9. Introduce the personas to your organization or project team. Describe the scope of your research and the process you followed during analysis; this often raises people's confidence in what you're reporting. Provide everyone with a personal copy of each persona. 10. Put the personas to work. Help your team understand how personas can play a role in activities such as design, development, and marketing. When people talk about "the user," challenge them to clarify which specific persona they're talking about. 10.5. Utilization Personas can and should be shared and utilized across the entire organization, and within various product development, marketing, customer support, and sales departments. TIPS FOR DEVELOPING USEFUL PERSONAS Pull together a 1 to 2 page precise narrative description for each persona. Identify workflow and daily behavioral patterns, using specific details, not generalities. Detail two or three technical skills to give an idea of computer competency. Include one or two ficțional details about the persona's life - an interest or a habit - that make each persona unique and memorable. Don't use someone you actually know as a persona; create a composite based on interviews and research data. For a new project, don't recycle a persona from a previous project; interview and create new personas for each project. Keep the number of personas created for a project relatively small - usually between three and seven, depending on the interface project. Develop a believable archetype so the design team will accept the persona. 10 BENEFITS OF PERSONAS 1. A better understanding of customers. Using personas helps the team focus on the users' goals and needs. The 2. Shorter design cycles. team can concentrate on designing a 3. Improved product quality. manageable set of personas knowing they represent the needs of many 4. Users' goals and needs become a common users. By always asking, "Would Jim point of focus for the team. use this?" the team can avoid the 5. The team can concentrate on designing for trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. a manageable set of personas knowing that they represent the needs of many users. Many companies including Ford Motor 6. They are relatively quick to develop and Company, Microsoft, and Staples replace the need to canvass the whole develop and use personas and they user community and spend months report many benefits from doing gathering user requirements. so,including: 7. They help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use. 8. Design and marketing efforts can be prioritized based on the personas. 9. Disagreements over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the personas. 10. Designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests. "In our modern digital environment, all businesses have a great competitive need for creative thinking that far exceeds our industrial forebears. In the quest for an institutional source of creativity, the brainstorming session, where several people meet to have fresh ideas, has emerged as the front runner." ALAN COOPER USABILITY.GOV INFOTODAY.COM UXMAG.COM/ COOPER.COM ELINCHPINSEO CHOPSTICKER.COM