The document discusses personas, which are profiles of hypothetical users that represent the different types of users of a system. Personas are developed based on research such as interviews with actual users. They include details such as demographics, goals, and behaviors. The document provides examples of personas for different types of users, such as students, photographers, and professors. It also discusses how personas can be used to guide design decisions and evaluate a system's effectiveness for different user groups.

1. Contextual Inquiry and Personas in
Interaction Design
IFI7156.DT Interaction Design Methods

2. Cooper, A., Reimann, R., & Cronin, D.
(2007). About Face 3: The Essentials of
Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN:
Wiley Publishing, Inc.

3. Personas as a design tool
• Determine what a product should do and how it should
behave
• Communicate with stakeholders, developers and other
designers
• Build consensus and commitment to the design
• Measure the design’s effectiveness
• Contribute to marketing
(Cooper, Reimann & Cronin, 2007)

5. Personas are based on
research
• Interviews with stakeholders, subject matter experts,
customers and users
• User observations
• Literature review
• Competitive reviews

6. Interviews

7. Guidelines for user interviews
• Interview where the interaction happens
• Avoid a fixed set of questions
• Focus on the goal first, tasks second
• Avoid making the user a designer
• Avoid discussion of technology
• Avoid leading questions
• Ask for stories, demonstrations and a tour
• Direct the interview as new issues arise
• Interpretation: read between the lines
(Cooper et al., 2007)

8. Goal-oriented questions
• Goals — What makes a good day? A bad day?
• Opportunity — What activities currently waste your
time?
• Priorities — What is most important to you?
• Information — What helps you make decisions?
(Cooper et al., 2007)

9. System-oriented questions
• Function — What are the most common things you do
with the product?
• Frequency — What parts of the product do you use
most?
• Preference — What are your favorite aspects of the
product? What drives you crazy?
• Failure — How do you work around problems?
• Expertise — What shortcuts do you employ?
(Cooper et al., 2007)

10. Workflow-oriented questions
• Process — What did you do when you first came in
today? And after that?
• Occurrence and recurrence — How often do you do
this? What things do you do weekly or monthly, but
not every day?
• Exception — What constitutes a typical day? What
would be an unusual event?
(Cooper et al., 2007)

11. Attitude-oriented questions
• Aspiration — What do you see yourself doing five
years from now?
• Avoidance — What would you prefer not to do? What
do you procrastinate on?
• Motivation — What do you enjoy most about your job
(or lifestyle)? What do you always tackle first?
(Cooper et al., 2007)

12. User observations

13. Planning
• Establish objectives and information requirements
• Establish the times, places, and people who will be
observed
• Decide on the recording technique that you will use

14. Running
• Make sure that those being observed are aware of
the study
• Run a pilot observation
• Try to be unobtrusive
• Take notes and clarify later, if needed
• If possible, take a photo of the observation area
• Write down first impressions immediately after the
observation

15. Literature review

16. Literature review
• Business documents: marketing plans, brand
strategy, market research, user surveys, customer
support data
• Technology specifications
• Research articles
• Related news in media, reviews
• Related posts and discussions in social media

17. Competitive review

18. Reasons for competitive review
• Find out how other people
solved the same design
problems
• Validate desired features
and priorities against a
similar site
• Explore approaches to
solving similar problems
(Brown, 2010)

19. Guidelines
• Focus: you can’t compare too many systems/features/
problems
• Create a set of criteria for comparison
• Choose meaningful systems for comparison

20. Competitive review structure
• Summary: objectives, study questions, and criteria
• Conclusions: one sheet/slide per conclusion, with
screenshot fragments
• Competitor profiles

21. Competitor profile
Beatport.com Release Page
Beatport release page displays additional
information that is important for dj’s.
What works:
• Track length and BPM are displayed
on release page
• Waveform and key are displayed on
track details page
• Release description
• More releases from the same label
What doesn’t work:
• Release title is displayed in capital
letters
• Price is displayed without taxes
Take-aways:
• Display detailed metadata
• Make metadata easy to copy
• The system could recommend tracks
with compatible key, tempo and style

22. Personas

23. Age: 26
Education: Master student
Occupation: librarian
Maria
Maria has studied information science and now she is doing her
Masterʼs studies in interactive media. At the same time she has a full
time job as a school librarian. Therefore she is interested in combining
school assignments with her work as much as possible. At the same
time she is a self-directed learner who likes to go in depth in topics that
are interesting for her.
Goals:
Personalization: “It is hard to have a full time job and be a master
student at the same time. If possible, then I try to choose assignments
that can be connected with my work.”
Scaffolding: “I feel that often it is difficult to specify all the resources
and actions that I have to make in order to achieve my learning
objectives. Good examples from other learners help me to refine my
contract.”
Awareness: “It was good that we had to review our learning
contracts. This way I was constantly aware of my objectives and
thinking about the strategy to achieve my goals.”
Photo by Alessandro Valli,
taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/liquene/4435467897/
(LeContract blog, 2010)

24. Persona’s elements
• Photo
• Background info (age, gender, computer, tech skills,
disabilities, ...)
• Goals
• Information seeking styles
• Usability needs
(Cooper et al., 2007)

25. Persona development process
1. Identify behavioral variables
2. Map interview subjects to behavioral variables
3. Identify significant behavior patterns
4. Synthesize characteristics and relevant goals
5. Check for redundancy and completeness
6. Expand description of attributes and behaviors
7. Designate persona types
(Cooper et al., 2007)

26. doesn’t matter if an interviewee falls at precisely 45% or 50% on the sca
often no good way to measure this precisely; you must rely on your g
based on your observations of the subject. The desired outcome of this
accurately represent the way multiple subjects cluster with respect to ea
cant variable (see Figure 5-4).
Figure 5-4 Mapping interview subjects to behavioral variables. This exa
from an online store. Interview subjects are mapped across each behavi
Precision of the absolute position of an individual subject on an axis is le
important than its relative position to other subjects. Clusters of subject
multiple axes indicate significant behavior patterns.
Necessity only Entertainment
Service-oriented Price-oriented
User 3 User 2 User 1, 4, 5
User 3User 2 User 5User 1, 4
(Cooper et al., 2007)

27. Persona types
• Primary (1)
• Secondary (0...2)
• Supplemental
• Customer
• Served: non-users affected by the use of the product
• Negative
(Cooper et al., 2007)

28. Primary persona
• Primary target for the design of an interface
• There can be only one primary persona for each interface
• Complex systems may have multiple interfaces and a
differerent primary persona for each interface

29. Secondary persona
• Is mostly satisfied with the primary persona’s interface
• Has additional needs that are not in conflict with primary
persona

30. Supplemental persona
• Not primary or secondary personas
• Their needs are completely satisfied by the combination
of primary and secondary personas
• Typically created for satisfying stakeholders assumptions

31. Customer persona
• Addresses the needs of customers, not end users
• Typically treated as secondary personas
• In some cases, customer persona may be a primary
persona for admin interface

32. Served persona
• Served personas do not use the product themself
• Served personas are effected by how other person uses
the product
• Typically treated as secondary personas

33. Negative persona
• Specific types of users that the product is not designed
for
• Example: tech-savvy early adopters

34. User goals
Life goals
• Be the best at what I do
• Learn all there is to know about this field
Experience goals
• Don’t feel stupid
• Don’t make mistakes
• Have fun
End goals
• Find the best price
• Process the customer’s order
(Cooper et al., 2007)

35. Non-user goals
Customer goals
• Be sure about the child’s safety
Corporate goals
• Increase market share
• Use resources more efficiently
Technical goals
• Support all major browsers
• Maintain consistency across platforms
(Cooper et al., 2007)

36. Examples

37. FeedFordwardremix your information environment
Persona: Laura, 11 June 2007
Laura Marsden
* 28 years old, engaged, female
* PhD in environmental design and planning
* Currently a lecturer in the School of Built
Environment at University
* Confident experimenter with the Internet but has
a lot of gaps in her knowledge that keep cropping up
and vexing her as she doesn't feel very 'technical'
* Has used bibliographic tools in the past but
prefers to rely on a known canon of classic works
and textbooks on her bookshelf
"I need to
know what my
students are
writing about,
and how it
relates to the
'real world'"
background
attributes
* enthusiastic - possible early adopter
* less experienced with computers and internet
* less experienced in research
user needs
* Keep up with students posts and be able to make comments
related to them
* keep up to date with new developments, especially new
building projects and planning applications
* generate new ideas for student activities
* effective help for when stuck
Laura is a lecturer in Built
Environment Studies at a traditional
University. She's been experimenting
with using blogs for student work
and has found the experience really
good, but has had problems keeping
up with the sheer volume of posts.
As a result she hasn't been
commenting on or highlighting
particular work in a consistent and
methodical manner.
She's also aware that also she
hasn't been keeping abreast of new
developments, particularly local
construction works and planning
applications that would make good
cases to look at with her students,
but also with new developments and
trends in urban planning generally.
Laura is very enthusiastic about
using technology in her job, but
thinks that the amount of time it
takes her to work with students
using her current approach will
mean too much work for larger
student groups.
profile
scenario needs feature behaviour
Laura decides to
track what her
students have been
writing over the
past week so she
can decide whether
to post a comment
on their work. She
decides rather than
comment now she'll
do it later when
she has more quiet
time available -
there's some other
work she has to
do.
*Manage attention
*Scan and Decide
*Defer action
*Mixer
*Radar
*Context
Laura wants to set
up her application
so it can track her
student's blogs and
post to her own
blog.
* Guidance Laura starts the application and begins
filling in the information in the First
Run Wizard. It asks her for the blogs
she wants to monitor, and her blog she
wants to post to. It asks her to
define her contexts and she chooses
"comment on student work for ..." for
each cohort she is teaching.
Initially the Radar has a lot of items,
and so she decides to try the Mixer.
She adjusts upwards the slider for
the course she is teaching tomorrow
and slides down the others. The
number of posts in the radar now
looks a lot more manageable.
Laura scans the Radar and sees a good
point made by one student, but which
would be made better with an
appropriate reference. She drags the
item to her "comment on student work
for..." context and continues scanning,
adding a few more items as she goes.
* Wizard
She decides to
write comments
and publish them
so that her
students can see
the comments.
*Editing control
*Publishing control
*Context
*Entry Editor
*Conduits: AtomPP
+ Trackback
Working down the list in the
"comment on student work for..."
context, she creates a new Entry in
and drags into it the Item she
selected earlier - it appears in
"references".
She writes a comment, and then
saves the entry. She then drags the
comment onto "Laura's Teaching
Blog". The application publishes the
comment, and sends a Trackback
Ping to the student's blog refenced
in the entry. The Entry alters its
state to show it was published
successfully.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
UK: England & Wales License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300,
San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
(The FeedForward Blog, 2007)

38. Age: 34
Education: PhD student
Occupation: university lecturer
Diana
Diana is a PhD student and university lecturer in educational sciences.
She completed her Masterʼs as a biology teacher and worked in a
school for several years. She was eager to try various pedagogical
methods and finally decided to start PhD studies in educational
sciences.
Now she is teaching a few courses in the university. One of the
methods that she is using in her courses is a personal learning
contract. She can really see how the learning contracts help some
students to improve the way they learn. On the other hand for some
students it is difficult to come up with a meaningful learning contract.
Goals:
Thinking in details: “I can give feedback to studentsʼ goals and help
them to refine their learning contracts already in the beginning of the
course. This encourages them to think in details.”
Planning the learning environment: “It is good to know what kind of
resources and tools students are planning to use. This way I can
design the learning environment according to their needs.”
Staying on track: “We are reviewing the learning contracts in the
middle of the course. I can see what kind of progress the students
have made and make necessary changes to the course.”Photo by Russell James Smith,
taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelljsmith/7006464/
(LeContract blog, 2010)

39. Age: 38
Education: Bachelorʼs degree, taking
online courses from foreign universities
Occupation: photographer
Carl
Carl has completed BA in computer science. He worked as a
programmer for more than a decade. Carl is interested travelling,
photography, history and foreign cultures. He is also an active user of
Web 2.0 environments.
With years of experience he has become quite good photographer. A
few years ago he decided to quit his programming job and started to
work as a freelancer wedding photographer. Now he has more time for
hobbies.
He has found out that quite a few foreign universities provide online
courses in foreign cultures, history, etc. He likes the fact that he can
study many interested topics but on the other hand he is worried about
the lack of community feeling in online courses.
Goals:
Social networking: “I think that collaboration with other participants is
very important in e-learning courses. Learning contracts help me to
find other people with whom I have similar learning goals.”
Collaboration: “I realized that learning contracts are specially
valuable for group work. This way we can easily divide roles and
responsibilities in a group.”
Photo by greenkozi,
taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/themacinator/3576296437/
(LeContract blog, 2010)

40. Age: 58
Education: PhD
Occupation: professor
Jakob
Jakob is a professor of industrial design. He has been working in the
university for almost 30 years. As a designer and researcher he has
participated in many R&D projects but his real love is teaching.
In last few years Jakob has decided to spend less time on projects and
travelling. This means that he has more time for preparing his courses
and trying out different things. He has experimented with blogs and
social software. In his last course he decided to try personal learning
contracts. It took quite a lot of time but he hopes that learning
contracts will help him to give a more personal learning experience for
his students.
Goals:
Adjusting the course: “I would like to know what the students expect
to learn in my course. Then I can adjust the course assignments
according to their needs.”
Personalized support: “I want to give more personalized guidance
and support for my students.”
Fair grading: “I donʼt like grading but in some courses I am required to
do it. I have found that learning contracts help me on fair grading. I rely
on learning contracts when I negotiate grades with my students.”
Photo by Jesse Courtemanche,
taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesse757/4170721132/
(LeContract blog, 2010)

42. Some suggestions

43. Some suggestions
• Start brainstorming with sticky notes
• Keep certain persons in mind but combine their goals
and descriptions into personas
• Mindmapping helps when writing persona descriptions

44. EduFeedr personas
Primary persona
Examples
Teemu
Hans
Mart
Secondary persona
Examples
Terje
Kairit
Supplemental personas
Goals
To get a quick overview of latest posts in
the course
Description
34 years old lecturer, long time doctoral
student, has background in education but
is quite technically savvy, early adopter of
new technologies, has long experience in
online learning, wantʼs to try out
something different in each course, is
participating in several projects and
travelling quite often, has a constant lack
of time, often reads the blog posts from his
iphone but is planning to write comments
later, sometimes leaves the laptop at work
and writes comments from his iPad.
Understands that the technology may
have certain limitations when it is still
under development.
To give better feedback for the students
To have multiple ways for browsing the
course
Teacher
Examples
Varje
Heikki
Student
Examples
Maris
Elyna
Goals
To create a functional learning community
To give support and feedback for all
students
To use course data for research purposes
Description
28 years old PhD student, teaching her
second online course, average computer
user, experienced in using web 2.0 tools,
very systematic, wants to use course data
for research purposes. Wantʼs to have a
reliable system. Is using desktop RSS
reader in addition to EduFeedr.
Goals
Description
Goals
Not to spend to much time on managing
the course
To make students to submit their
assignments on time
To be sure that the system is reliable
Description
Teacher in a vocational school, has some
experience both in using Moodle and in
using social software. Wantʼs to have his
first blog-based course. Is not using RSS
reader.
To find inspiration from other student
blogs
To explore other open courses
Customer personaEducational technologist
Examples
Krista
Marge
Marko
Negative persona
ExamplesAnne
Goals
To have one learning platform that
satisfies all her needs
To customize the learning platform
according to her taste and needs
Goals
Description
To get teachers using the system
To be sure that the system is reliable
Not to spend too much time on supporting
the users
...
...
Description...
Ilya
To get statistics about the use in their
institution

45. Primary persona
Examples
Teemu
Hans
Mart
Goals
To get a quick overview of latest posts in
the course
Description
34 years old lecturer, long time doctoral
student, has background in education but
is quite technically savvy, early adopter of
new technologies, has long experience in
online learning, wantʼs to try out
something different in each course, is
participating in several projects and
travelling quite often, has a constant lack
of time, often reads the blog posts from his
iphone but is planning to write comments
later, sometimes leaves the laptop at work
and writes comments from his iPad.
Understands that the technology may
have certain limitations when it is still
under development.
To give better feedback for the students
To have multiple ways for browsing the
course

46. Finding photos
• Royalty free photos: http://www.sxc.hu
• Creative Commons licensed photos: http://www.flickr.com/
creativecommons/by-2.0/

48. References
• Brown, D. M. (2010). Communicating Design: Developing Web Site
Documentation for Design and Planning (2nd ed.). Berkley, CA: New Riders.
• Cooper, A., Reimann, R., & Cronin, D. (2007). About Face 3: The Essentials of
Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
• The FeedForward Blog (2007). How Laura uses FF. http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/
feedforward/2007/10/18/how-laura-uses-ff/
• LeContract blog (2010). http://blog.lecontract.org

49. Photos
• Nicolas Nova, http://www.flickr.com/photos/nnova/2081056587/

50. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Hans Põldoja
hans.poldoja@tlu.ee
Interaction Design Methods
http://ifi7156.wordpress.com
Tallinn University
School of Digital Technologies