The document discusses how the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya enhances personas with scenarios to represent different types of users and their contexts of use. It provides examples of two personas - Martina, a 40-year old student who enjoys studying, and Jordi, a 32-year old who wants to improve his career - and describes their typical scenarios of studying at home, commuting, and at work. The approach aims to better understand users and improve the design of the university's virtual campus and resources.

1. Enhancing personas with their main
scenarios
Speaker:
Marta López Reyes

3. Who are we?…
Quality Accessibility
Development
Office of
Learning
Technologies Pedagogy
(OLT)
Design
User
Linguistics Centered
Design

4. It is said…
(…) The use of a usability and accessibility lab, with applications
and prototype testing, including a formal "applications
certification," is key to the UOC IT innovation process. (…)
For example, the UOC has identified the UOC user types:
"I love learning." (22% of students)
"Learning helps me grow." (25% of students)
"I intend to improve my career." (12% of students)
"I have to study." (11% of students)
"I want it easy." (20% of students)
Gartner: “The Third-Generation LMS at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya”

5. Our Virtual Campus
Open source
Integrating other solutions
Engaging-for-all
Accessible-to-all
Versatile

7. User Centered Design
User
Centered
Design
Quality Development
Accessibility Pedagogy
Linguistics Design

8. Visual definition

9. Short definition

10. What is the process we follow at the UOC?
Plan UCD process
The system satisfies
the requirements
Specify context of use
Evaluate designs against Specify organizational and
user requirements user requirements
Produce design solutions
ISO 13407 Model (Human centred design processes for interactive systems)

11. What is the process we follow at the UOC?
Plan UCD process
The system satisfies
the requirements
Specify context of use
Evaluate designs against Specify organizationaland
Specify organizational and
user requirements user requirements
user requirements
Produce design solutions
ISO 13407 Model (Human centred design processes for interactive systems)

12. Personas
Personas are fictional characters created to represent the
different user types within a targeted demographic, attitude and/or
behavior set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way.

13. Common Representations of Personas
http://www.agorablue.com/services/
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/glossary_usab/index2.html
http://room07.com/

14. A Different Approach to Present Personas
What do you think about these people?
Tired Serious
Responsible Tidy
Authoritarian
Nice
Friendly
Hard-working
Intolerant Selfish

15. Introducing personas
Development
Quality
Accessibility Pedagogy
Linguistics Design

16. Combining the concepts of personas & scenarios
+ =

17. Our Personas
Martina, 40: "I enjoy studying“ married with two children.
Martina is forty years old, and married with two children (Anna, 6, and Toni, 8). She works part‐time as a
journalist for a local paper. She has always wanted to study Art History and now the children are going to school,
she has been able to make her dream come true and enrol at the UOC.
She has been studying for five semesters and she likes to dig deep into each of the subjects, which is why she only
studies a few each semester. Her main tool for studying is the computer, which she uses to consult the additional
classroom resources and communicate with her lecturers and classmates.
Despite the fact that her studies come in third place behind her family and work, studying again makes her feel very
good about herself. She is in no hurry to finish, and prefers to enjoy each subject and everything about being a student.
Jordi, 32: "I want to improve my career prospects“ lives with his girlfriend.
Jordi is thirty‐two and lives with his girlfriend, Anna. He works as a technology expert at a small consultancy firm.
He studied a Computer Engineering Foundation Degree. Thanks to advice from a friend, he enrolled at the UOC to study
a full Computer Engineering Degree. He is looking for promotion and a better wage at his company.
So as to be able to balance work and home life, Jordi has a set schedule for studying. He sets aside Saturday
mornings for completing his continuous assessment activities. As he has little time, he focuses on studying that which is
vital to passing the subjects. At the end of the day, the most important thing is the qualification, and he is in a hurry to
gain it. He likes the fact that the UOC allows him to express his individualism and his desire "to get on with the work",
though he also enjoys the support gets from the lecturers when he needs it..

18. Our Personas
Martina, 40: "I enjoy studying“ married with two children.
"At home"
Martina takes advantage of the time her children spend doing their homework to go over the UOC materials and to
prepare for the continuous assessment activities. She spends an hour a day on these tasks.
"Commuting"
Martina takes the bus each day to go to work. When she wasn’t studying at the UOC, she would spend this time
reading books. She has now bought an MP3 player so that she can listen to the materials for some subjects. This is a
great help when she is revising for the continuous assessment activities.
"At work"
Martina takes advantage of any free time at work to check her inbox and the forums, as she doesn't like them to pile
up. She always has a tab open with the UOC's site. She is thinking about buying a mobile that she could use to connect
to the internet for these kinds of things.
Jordi, 32: "I want to improve my career prospects“ lives with his girlfriend.
"At home"
Jordi spends Saturday mornings connected to the UOC, as he has no time during the week. He focuses on finding the
information he needs for the continuous assessment activities, and doesn't look any further.
"Commuting"
Jordi rides his scooter to work each day to avoid the traffic on the ring roads. When it rains, though, he doesn't
take the scooter, and takes the metro instead. In this case, if he knows he has to hand in an activity, he takes
advantage of the journey to read up on the subject and make some headway with the work.
"At work"
Jordi doesn't connect to the UOC from work very often, though when it comes time to hand work in, he uses any free time
to revise subjects, send messages and work on the continuous assessment activities.

20. Why we think is better this way?
10
people
Same questions
10
people

21. Why we think it is better this way?
Martina
Jordi

22. Why we think is better this way?
10
people
Same questions
10
people

23. One month later
Martina
Jordi

24. Conclusion
•Both artifacts had a good retention result.
•The participants that did the test with the cube showed
greater enjoyment.

25. Questions?

26. Thank you for your attention!!
lt.uoc.edu
uoc.edu
Learning Technologies: learningtechnologies@uoc.edu
Marta Lopez: mlopezreye@uoc.edu