Symplicit Ark Persona Presentation V2.1

Creating Personas: Designing for real people… Jodie Moule, Principal Consultant November, 2008

Jodie Moule
Symplicit~
Principal Consultant with Symplicit
Symplicit offers product design and strategy services
Background and training
Registered psychologist
10 years working in UCD consulting in Sydney and Melbourne
Professional focus and interests?
Moving beyond usability alone and combining Psychology of human thought and behaviour with web design
… but always ensuring that we are designing ease of use!

Introduction…
What are we going to cover today?

General outline…
Why UCD is important
What are personas anyway?
How have others done it?
Things that will help you…
Quick questions and discussion!

Personas…
Why UCD is important?

A scene from a stakeholder meeting… In our experience, feature X isn’t worth the investment. Our customers don’t want it… … but that’s not what we discussed in the kick-off meeting… Our contextual analysis revealed that feature X was not part of the users mental model the ROI simply isn’t there I still think customers would use feature X … I’d use it!

A scene from a stakeholder meeting… Yes, but are all our users like you? No, but I know what my customers want and this is important! But our users don’t need it. That is what the analysis shows… Forget everything you know about users – we need to be innovative!

A scene from a stakeholder meeting… Feature X stays in scope… are we done? ?!@$%!@*#!

What went wrong here?
The Golden Rules of User-Centred Design:
Recognise that business results depend on making your users happy
Realise that you are not your users
Learn about your users by interacting with them
Make the findings of this research understandable and actionable
Make decisions based on this newfound user knowledge

Business results depend on users
If the user is satisfied, you will reap the rewards…
THE USER YOU
WEB SITE / PRODUCT SPECIFIC GOAL CONTENT OR FEATURE BUSINESS RESULT INCREASED REVENUE PRODUCT INFORMATION; EASY CHECKOUT FIND THE BEST XYZ PRODUCT $$$

You are NOT your users…
Once your colleagues and stakeholders believe that satisfying users is critical…
The next step in their education is convincing them that the users aren’t like them.
… find someone with direct contact with users (customer service, call centre, sales) and they’ll be happy to point out surprising things that team members don’t know about their users…

You learn about your users through direct contact

Knowledge about your users must be actionable It is important to have clear findings that are memorable and actionable…or they are dismissed Personas put a face on user research Turning data into the kind of knowledge that leads to better user experiences and better websites and products

Decisions should be based on user knowledge
Once you know your users and can share this knowledge in a way that is actionable…
It is significantly easier to design for them instead of designing for yourself
… There should be limited moments like this one!
?!@$%!@*#!

What are personas?
Introduction…

So what is a persona?
Personas are usually a way to assist others to understand the customer data you have experienced
A way to communicate understanding of user needs based on rich contextual data gathered
Bring users alive for those not involved in the data collection process.
… so who are personas really for then?

Personas…our stakeholders

Personas…

Personas…
Case Studies:
What we’ve done…

Persona Case Studies
Case Study 1:
Sensis, White Pages Online

Case Study 1: WPOL today

Case Study 1: WPOL personas embody research
In 2006 Sensis wanted to explore how the White Pages value proposition could be extended for end users and Sensis customers (advertisers)
The internal “Concept and Design” team set up and owned the qualitative exploration which focused on exploring usefulness (as opposed to usability) and possible initiatives to develop White Pages (in all its various forms)
The team created end user/customer personas to communicate insights. These were presented in a storyboard format.

Case Study 1: WPOL personas research context
The persona exploration was one step in the journey of WPOL from simply presenting content from the print directory online to becoming an interactive website
One of the significant benefits of the storyboard is that is conveys how the proposed expansion of the value proposition needed to happen in order to ensure user acceptance
It showed an incremental approach was needed and could take place to transition users from existing behaviours and usage which was familiar to a broader use.

Case Study 2:
Telstra, Mobile Music

Case Study 2: Telstra mobile music
Who was listening to music
How were they downloading,
purchasing and storing it across devices
How this experience could be enhanced

Case Study 2: Integrated research & design

Case Study 2: Scenarios put personas to work
Typical scenarios stepped stakeholders through how different personas would accomplish common tasks via their mobile phone
The task was deceptively simple, that is:
Find a track of interest,
Purchase the track
Download the song via their mobile phone,
Then listen to the newly purchased track on your mobile
This was then used later in the development cycle to test prototype designs and validate them – not only for behavioural value fit – but overall usability and ease-of-use.

Case Study 2: Scenarios put personas to work

Case Study 2: Mobile platform drop-off points…

Case Study 2: Proposed purchase workflow…

Case Study 2: Telstra Mobile Music research outcomes
Extensive upfront research into user behaviours around ‘what does music mean’ to users revealed behavioural habits and values around purchase and download of music
These findings led to clear understanding of what workflows would and would not be most effective for users when purchasing tracks via mobile
The changes in the interface lead to a 29% increase in music downloads on top of what was already the most profitable music purchase channel (over web)

Case Study 3:
Telstra, Unified Communications

Case Study 3: Telstra Communication and Collaboration
Research project undertaken on behalf of Telstra
Understand how users are currently communicating and collaborating at work and home
What devices do they use to communicate and collaborate
The influences of role and nature of the organisation might have on the way they communicate and collaborate

Case Study 3: Telstra communication & collaboration

Case Study 3: Research outcomes
Intended for future product development – personas were general in nature and are to be evolved over time
Research provided product teams with a greater depth of understanding than the market segments alone offered
The research showed how and why certain products were useful or not (both competing and Telstra products)
Honed in on what issues companies currently faced that would then lead to a greater understanding of potential blockers for certain products that might be developed

Personas…business benefits
Personas, in practice, may look very different depending on the purpose for which they have been created and the organisation in which they will be used.
Personas provided value in the three case studies by:
White Pages - assisting stakeholders to choose and prioritise what should and should not be done when setting the future direction of this brand
Telstra Mobile Music - quickly harnessing research insights and linking these into the design effort. The focus was on how informed design could improve the user experience and flow-through to product revenue. Personas/scenarios were a vehicle
Telstra Communication and Collaboration – dispel assumptions and provide an understanding of a broad set of behaviours and putting forward high-level design and product implications for future products.

Session conclusion

Tools that will help you…

Personas…key concepts to remember
Personas – description of a typical customer, a composite drawn down from the actual data you have collected
User Scenario – a description of a particular task performed by a persona, told in a story as though it were actual observed behaviour
Goal – High level achievement a persona is working toward or strives to maintain
Values and behaviour – outlines the ‘how they will use’ element. Persuasive behavoural elements we can build upon that will lead to use and usage
Task – an identifiable piece of work for which the persona is responsible
Role – the primary jobs that the persona plays, the hats they wear, responsibilities that lead to an intent…

Personas…the basics checklist
Conduct user research!
Analyse your outputs
Identify the persona to be created
Identify goals, roles, tasks and emotions /
values for each persona
Write the persona
Write a user scenario – an extended task
description to explain different situations
Check your personas against your original research
And most important …evolve your personas over time!!

Personas…some light bedtime reading?
Recommended reading on Personas:
Cooper (2004) - The Inmates are Running the Asylum.
Pruitt and Adlin (2006) – The Persona Lifecycle.
Mulder and Yaar (2007) – The User is Always Right.
Beyer and Holtzblatt (1998) – Contextual Design.

Questions and discussion…
Tie-up and Summary:
Questions, discussion, thoughts and impressions…

For more information or help?
Jodie Moule, Principal Consultant
Ph: (03) 9670 3385
Mob: 0415 288 283
Symplicit Pty Ltd offices:
Level 1, Suite 103, 757 Bourke St, Docklands, Victoria.
Website: www.symplicit.com.au

Symplicit Ark Persona Presentation V2.1

by jodie moule on Nov 17, 2008

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

2 Embeds 19

Statistics

Symplicit Ark Persona Presentation V2.1 — Presentation Transcript

http://paper.li	14
http://www.slideshare.net	5