1. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Personas
‣ UX Group - Linz Meetup
‣ 14.04.2016 19:00
‣ @Team Sisu

2. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
… to indicate a character
of a theatrical performance
or court of law …
different individuals
(actors) can assume the
same role by following the
attributes of a persona
rights, powers, duties, etc.
2
History
In Latin, persona originally meant "mask".

3. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Personas
3
PERSONA TEMPLATE
UXfocus
Image
Innovator with a lot of power. He is social and tries to advance his
business ...
Ambitious Admired Focused
MOTIVATIONS PERSONALITY
TECHNOLOGY
GOALS
FRUSTRATIONS
IT and Internet
Software
Mobile Apps
Social Networks
Extrovert Introvert
Sensing Intuition
Thinking Feeling
Judging Perceiving
• Slow download times
• Advance an idea
• Talk and communicate with others
•
BIO
The innovator
Vienna, Austria
Enthusiast
Single
Entrepreneur
26
STATUS
AGE
LOCATION
OCCUPATION
ARCHETYPE
TIER
Growth
Social
Incentive
Fear
Acheivement
Power
persona name www.uxfocus.at
UX Character
IT and Internet
Software
Mobile Apps
Social Networks

4. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Personas
What is “User Personas”
Personas are an example of a person within your
target audience.
Personas should represent a major user group for your
website
The purpose of personas is to create reliable and
realistic representations of our key audience segments
for reference. These representations should be based
on qualitative and some quantitative user research.
4

5. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Personas
Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and
values
Express the major needs and expectations of your
user groups
A realistic representations of our key audience
segments.
Aid in uncovering universal features and
functionality
5

6. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Personas
6
Most importantly,
Personas should be based research.
Either qualitative or quantitative

7. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Based only on marketing data
Based on opinions of company stakeholders
whether they’d ever met a real user or not
Fictional personas poison the pool and tool!!!
They will impart an inaccurate understanding of
users and provide a false sense of security and
solidify assumptions.
Personas are not …
7

8. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Personas
A persona should include:
Social and demographic characteristics.
Needs, desires, goals
Habits (consumer habits, behavior)
Expertise
Cultural background
Motivations
Must do, must never
User experience goals
8
http://www.ux-lady.com/diy-user-personas/

9. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Building your persona
Collect information from all sources
Interviews, Market research, Product Owner, Product
Manager, Customer care, etc.
Create an initial spectrum of potential users
Conduct interviews
Analyze the data
Create your persona
Create possible scenarios for your persona
Define user roles related to the persona
Test the persona with your team, stakeholders, etc.
9

10. Buyer Persona
Marketing Persona
Customer Persona
User Persona

11. Constructed descriptions of a
target group participant …
Proto Personas

12. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Current best guesses to describe and understand
who is currently using (or will use) your product
and why.
They are NOT full, research backed!!!
12
Provisional Personas

13. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Benefits
Stakeholders expose what they know and what
they don’t about the users
If you find out you don’t know enough you can
start to research
13
Provisional Personas

14. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Benefits
Help your team understand personas and why
they are important
Help your team to practice, create and iterate
persona creation methods
14
Provisional Personas

15. How?

16. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at 16
Process
Identification &
Segmentation
Attribute
Profiling
Personification
Spectrum
Profiling
Stage 1 Stage 2
Stage 4 Stage 3

17. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at 17
Process - Stage 1
How?
There is no one right
way to segment your users….
but that’s OK.
As long as you determine users that are important to you and
your business , you will have succeeded, no ma;er how you
segment your user base.
Identification &
Segmentation
Attribute
Profiling
Personification
Spectrum
Profiling
St St

18. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Stage I - hints & activities
18
1. think of all the people who currently use, or could use your product
1. how are users typically categorized
2. how do you think they should be categorized
3. industry and roles are a good place to start
2. name each type of user, and put each kind of user on its own sticky note
1. place it on the wall
3. cluster, group, and eliminate duplicates as needed
1. Discuss whether there are too many or too few categories
2. consolidate or divide personas as needed
3. Don’t spend too long debating this, as the number of categories will
evolve during the whole process

19. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at 19
Process - Stage 1I
How to describe the types of people?
What are the common, average, or dominant characteristics that are
meaningful and make each type of users different than the others=
Identification &
Segmentation
Attribute
Profiling
Personification
Spectrum
Profiling
St St

20. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Stage II - hints & activities
20
1. Get out 4 colors of sticky notes!!!
1. Color one: demographics and environment
2. Color two: responsibilities, needs / wants, motivations, and goals
3. Color three: pain points
4. Color four: design imperatives
2. Consolidate all affinity diagrams onto a piece of paper -> proto persona

21. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at 21
Process - Stage III
How would you describe the types of people
that are e.g. the users?
What are the common, average, or dominant
characteristics that are meaningful and make
each type of users different than the others?
Describe them as a spectrum!
Identification &
Segmentation
Attribute
Profiling
Personification
Spectrum
Profiling
St St
texts infrequently texts often

22. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Stage III - hints & activities
22
1. For each type of user (or similar types of users, e.g. the same industry)
choose 5-10 attributes you think are important or matter more than
others
2. Share them with the team members (put them on a whiteboard)
3. Consolidate the attributes in to a set of 5-10

23. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Stage III - hints & activities
23
4. each team member places a uniquely colored dot on the spectrums
where they think it is most appropriate
5. continue for all 5-10 spectrums
6. stand back and notice patterns
1. If there is immediate consensus, minimal discussion will be required.
2. If, however, there are outliers or a broad distribution of opinion, the
team should be encouraged to discuss and debate those issues.
3. Do patterns in the spectrum voting reveal that perhaps what has
been thought of as one persona should be split into two, or do you
just not understand enough to come to an agreement on what this
type of user is like
7. Consolidate all ‘votings into one dot per spectrum

24. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Stage III - hints & activities
24

25. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldtstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at 25
Process - Stage IV
At this point you have a bunch of user types.
Anyway, they are not yet a proto- or
provisional persona.
Personifying makes each user type more and
more concrete and a tangible example.
Identification &
Segmentation
Attribute
Profiling
Personification
Spectrum
Profiling
St St

26. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Stage IV - hints & activities
26
1. Determine
1. name
2. descriptive label (e.g. impatient online customer)
3. strong quote in ‘their own words’
2. Use sticky notes, brain storming, brain dumping, one concept per note
1. Stand back, notice patterns
2. Discuss with the team
3. Cluster notes into related groups (affinity diagram)
3. Determine if anything is missing!

27. Iterate!!!
until you say: cheers that’s it

28. It is more important that a persona be precise than
accurate.
That is, it is more important to define the persona in great
and specific detail than that the persona be the precisely
correct one.
Alan Cooper

29. UXFocus e.U.
Humboldstrasse 40/2, A-4020 Linz, www: www.uxfocus.at, mailto: contact@uxfocus.at
Common mistakes
1. A persona is created by a sales manager
2. Too many personas are created
3. The interviewees aren’t diverse enough
4. You avoid personal questions during the interview
1. E.g. why should I know something about her kids if
the kids will not use my application …
5. You do not refresh and keep your personas alive
6. Your personas are done but no one sees them.
1. Kept in a drawer, on a network folder, etc.
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30. Dr. Thomas Grill
Mobile: +43 699 101 28 544, mailto: thomas.grill@uxfocus.at
Contact
3030
Dr. Thomas Grill
UXfocus
Humboldtstrasse 40/2
4020 Linz, Austria
Mobile: +43 699 101 28 544
Email: thomas.grill@uxfocus.at