Personas In Product Design

Personas in Product Design,[object Object],By Lauren Martin,[object Object]

Outline,[object Object],What is a persona?,[object Object],Where did they come from?,[object Object],The conversation around personas.,[object Object],How to create personas.,[object Object],Case Studies,[object Object]

What is a Persona?,[object Object]

Persona:,[object Object],“Personas are a set of representative profiles for a customer base. As a design tool, they are a powerful way to communicate behaviors, goals, wants, needs, and frustrations.” ,[object Object],“Effective personas are driven by research data and focus on how a particular profile uses a particular application in a given context. The creation of different profiles is based on […] many customers.”,[object Object],-Todd Zaki Warfel zakiwarfel.com,[object Object],“Personas are not real people, but they are based on the behaviors and motivations of real people”,[object Object],-Cooper, About Face 3: The essentials of Interaction Design,[object Object]

Source: http://zakiwarfel.com/archives/persona-templates/,[object Object]

A Persona is Not…,[object Object],Based on demographics or market segments,[object Object],Drawn from gut feelings about your audience,[object Object],User profiles or stereotypes e.g. “soccer mom”,[object Object],-From Adaptive Path’s Case Study on PayCycle,[object Object]

Where did they come from?,[object Object]

History of Personas ,[object Object],Identified in a chapter of Alan Cooper’s The inmates Are Running the Asylum in 1998.,[object Object],Stemmed from the way Cooper designed programs by focusing on one person he personally knew, who would be using the application. ,[object Object]

What are they for?,[object Object],Cooper used personas to provide a focus for the product. ,[object Object],Instead of saying… ,[object Object],The conversation becomes…,[object Object],“we could build this product to do anything”,[object Object],“what would this person need it to do?”,[object Object]

How were they made?,[object Object],Cooper created these personas by interviewing potential users. ,[object Object],While many were very different, patterns began to emerge putting the users into distinct group sets.,[object Object],Theses groups were defined by:,[object Object], Goals,[object Object], Tasks,[object Object], Skill levels,[object Object],Alan Cooper,[object Object],Source: http://www.cooper.com/journal/2003/08/the_origin_of_personas.html,[object Object]

What did he do with them?,[object Object],Using the information gathered from interviews, he created personas for each distinct user group set.,[object Object],These embodied the goals, wants and needs of the people in the group. ,[object Object],Personas were shared with others in the company to help with decision making and scope.,[object Object]

Example ,[object Object],When first talking to a company Cooper was consulting for, the direction was that this product “could do anything”,[object Object],After interviewing potential users he found there were three distinct groups.,[object Object],These groups were named and given a face and provided direction for the analysts.,[object Object]

Example Cont.,[object Object],Chuck: An analyst who uses ready-built templates and reports.,[object Object],Cynthia: An analyst who uses ready built templates & writes her own which she shares.,[object Object],Rob: A manager who can edit and optimize Cynthia’s templates.,[object Object]

The Conversation around using Personas,[object Object]

Negative Reviews,[object Object],They are a waste of time because are fake.,[object Object],They are not as credible as real customer profiles, names, titles & companies.,[object Object],Personas don’t talk back. Personas can’t answer questions. ,[object Object],They are silly, unrealistic and based on sales goals.,[object Object]

Counter Argument,[object Object],They are a waste of time because are fake.,[object Object],Personas should be based on data, known customers and interviews, only a name and image should be fake, but realistic, to provide a face for the group.,[object Object],They are not as credible as real customer profiles, names, titles & companies.,[object Object],Using a single real customer(s) pigeon holes you to one type of person, it also creates risk that you will build for that “one” vocal customer instead of a group of people with similar goals and needs.,[object Object]

Counter Argument Cont.,[object Object],Personas don’t talk back. Personas can’t answer questions. ,[object Object],It’s important to know the users your personas are based on. You can contact them, and ask questions. Personas are only one way to share user opinions, wants and needs and provide an archetype for groups of users. They should not be a substitution for getting to know your users or performing other means of usability research.,[object Object]

Counter Argument Cont.,[object Object],They are silly, unrealistic and based on sales goals.,[object Object],Unfortunately this bias comes from “misguided poorly constructed personas”. Analysis is missing in regards to “real user data, observations and interviews”.,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]

How to Create Personas,[object Object]

10 Rules to Remember,[object Object],Keep them simple and memorable,[object Object],They should be separated by goals, not behavior,[object Object],Focus on satisfying the widest audience, not the sales audience.,[object Object],Add a little personal detail, but not so much they appear phony.,[object Object],Focus on 3 or 4 goals per persona,[object Object]

10 Rules to Remember Cont.,[object Object],Create personas in context of a specific project,[object Object],Personas represent behavior patterns not job descriptions.,[object Object],Keep your persona set small.,[object Object],Remember that there is not a direct correlation between market segments and personas.,[object Object],Focus on goals, not tasks. Task are things we do to achieve goals.,[object Object],-Personas – A Literature Review by Andrea Richeson & Perfecting Your Personas by Kim Goodwin,[object Object]

Why cant I make them up? ,[object Object],“Designers frequently fail to realize or predict the difficulty people will experience in using their system. One reason is that they are extremely familiar with the system and have a very detailed and complete mental model. […] They fail to realize that the average user does not have this mental model and may never interact with the system enough to develop one.”,[object Object],-An Introduction to Human Factors Engineering by Christopher Wickens,[object Object]

Why a fake name etc.? ,[object Object],“Creating personas that are a reflection of real people helps us as designers and developers to empathize with our end users and more easily consider needs, goals, and priorities that may be different than our own. ”,[object Object],-How to Create Effective Personas for Your Projects by Ron Akanowicz,[object Object]

Where to I get the Data?,[object Object],Surveys,[object Object],Easy & inexpensive.,[object Object],Knowledge of question writing techniques is strongly recommended to avoid biases.,[object Object],Focus Groups,[object Object],Allows collection of the ideas of a group of related users simultaneously.,[object Object],Must be careful of group think and vocal leaders.,[object Object],Contextual Interviews ,[object Object],Can be costly.,[object Object],Interviewing in context of the users job. Kind of like shadowing.,[object Object],Site Metrics and Usage data,[object Object],Data about visitor habits can help define the outliers and unique traits.,[object Object],Provides a baseline,[object Object]

How many personas? ,[object Object],The general rule of thumb is 3-5 per project.,[object Object],The personas should cover the 3-5 major user types the product is supporting.,[object Object],Too many means your product is not focused enough, and you may have feature creep, or you might be overcomplicating user goals.,[object Object]

PayCycle – Online Payroll ,[object Object],BEFORE: “PayCycle’s biggest challenge was helping customers navigate through a complex setup process that lay between them and the open road.”,[object Object],AFTER: “The new PayCyclePayToday™ Setup tells you where you are, points out good rest stops, reminds you where you’ve already been, and how much further you have to go, resulting in a better experience and shortcuts to the destination.”,[object Object]

How they did it.,[object Object],They needed to understand why new customers struggled with and found the setup process confusing. ,[object Object],They launched into a series of interviews with existing and prospective customers to learn how they think about payroll.,[object Object],This lead to the development of their personas which were used to create a set of new design criteria better matching the customers mental model about payroll.,[object Object],- Adaptive Path Case Studies: PayCycle,[object Object]

MindKey HCM Software,[object Object],MindKey processes are developed based on research and customer feedback. They have created several personas to illustrate ways different organization roles interact with their software.,[object Object]

WaMu,[object Object],Known for their extensive user experience research and well laid out branches, WaMu had an well defined, yet broad set of personas to meet all their needs. ,[object Object]

Workday ,[object Object],“Workday provides an intuitive, modern Internet user experience (UE) for all workers in a business, from power users to casual users.”,[object Object],-http://www.workday.com/solutions/foundation/user_experience.php,[object Object]

Workday – Casual Users,[object Object],Casual users only need to understand how to follow a link to get information and how to push a button to make changes—just like they experience using the Internet at home. There is no need to take training courses to learn about menus or how to search in order to make the application work for them. On their "All About Me" homepage they are just a click away from where they need to go to see data or take action.,[object Object],- http://www.workday.com/solutions/foundation/user_experience.php,[object Object]

Workday - Managers,[object Object],Managers get quick and easy views of the data they care about on their "My Workday" homepage via Worklets, or small windows that contain role specific data, tasks, or links.,[object Object],Managers can access their most commonly used tasks and reports directly from their homepage via their Quicklinks and Inbox Worklet to get to workflow approvals. They can also view embedded graphs of key processes they need to monitor such as progress of departmental performance reviews.,[object Object],Managers can also access a graphical organization chart that serves as the single destination for workforce management with links to relevant actions, such as staffing and compensation administration transactions, and reporting. ,[object Object],-http://www.workday.com/solutions/foundation/user_experience.php,[object Object]

Workday – Power Users,[object Object],Power users need shortcuts throughout the system and tools to support multi-tasking. Workday supports these needs with slide out "workpanes," which let a power user check the status of a business process or view a favorite report without leaving the work in process on their main window. Robust search capabilities are included giving the ability to quickly search available transactions and reports as well as business data.,[object Object],-http://www.workday.com/solutions/foundation/user_experience.php,[object Object]

Personas In Product Design

Personas In Product Design

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