IS6117 Electronic Business Development Project Lecture 2: Personas Rob Gleasure R.Gleasure@ucc.ie www.robgleasure.com

IS6117 Today’s session Some course stuff Personas What Why How (a template) When Where Persona design exercise

Course discussion Social Media Representatives Skills and job roles

An impossible starting point We need to design for humans Every human is different Our design needs to work for lots of humans Solve for x…

What is a Persona A persona is a summary of a group of people using a single, relatable fictional person Why was Mrs. Doyle a fun character? Image from https://www.her.ie/news/ah-go-on-mrs-doyle-launches-her-own-range-of-tea-cosies-20107

Why personas? We can make sense of incredible complex interdependent and dynamic influences in other human beings more easily than we can explain them as discrete constructs and relationships A single person is more relatable than a group Charities use single people to provoke a response Groups are more likely to suffer empathy fatigue and apathy (Västfjäll et al., 2014) Cheerleader effect (Walker and Vul, 2013) Groups of people tend to blur together for external observers, meaning each one become less extreme and individual

How do we construct a persona? You usually have some idea of the user groups at the outset - it’s helpful to lay these out so the design team can identify differing opinions One you have these groups, you need to gather as much data as you can to challenge the existence of these groups and the boundaries between them All types of data can play a different role. The idea is to get a rounded perspective as early as possible Be open-ended with the questions you ask (literally and figuratively) Continuously ‘code’ individual users according to specific personas

A template for persona-building Courtesy of Xtensio (https://xtensio.com/user-persona/)

A template for persona-building Who are they? Give them a name (can be fun, rather than realistic) Add a picture and a quote to humanise them further What’s their background? Job role and history Family and dependents What’s their demographics? Gender, age Income, urban/suburban/rural Write a short bio to make the persona rich. This part won’t fit every corresponding person exactly – it just has to capture some generic story

A template for persona-building What’s their personality? Extraversion vs. Introversion Do they take energy from the inside or outside world? Sensing vs. Intuition Do they prefer to think first and then look for information, or ask for information first and think about it afterwards? Thinking vs. Feeling Do they rely more on logic or feeling to make decisions? Judging vs. Perceiving Do they prefer to be organised and have a plan or improvise and stay flexible? Other defining traits

A template for persona-building What do they want? What are their goals? Major goals, including life goals (things they want to be or accomplish) Secondary or task-level goals (things they want to do to accomplish something) Experiential goals (things they want to do for the sake of doing them) What are their challenges and frustrations? Tasks they wish they could avoid Tools and technologies they wish they could avoid People or social demands they wish they could avoid

A template for persona-building Why do they want change to happen? Why are they keen for possible changes? Opportunities for big picture changes Opportunities for everyday routine or infrastructure changes Why are they worried about possible changes? Threats from big picture changes Threats from everyday routine or infrastructure changes

A template for persona-building What motivates them to perform in their job and participate constructively? Material or financial incentives Do they need to see a personal bottom-line in the equation? Fear Do they see performance/participation as damage control? Growth Do they want to develop their skills and learn? Power Do they want the chance to make bigger decisions? Social rewards Does peer esteem in itself motivate them?

A template for persona-building How should changes be presented to align with existing trust structures? Brand and influencers Companies or within-company groups that have accumulated respect and trust over time Social groups with whom the persona identifies Individuals that have accumulated respect and trust over time Preferred channels Ads/broadcast communications Online/social media Referral Guerrilla efforts/PR

When to use personas? Personas should be created for every different user group involved in a target system For each person you believe is relevant, ask yourself “which persona describes them?” If you find yourself struggling to make them fit, you need another persona Don’t forget to include all types of users – think back to your work on use cases – all users need to be considered if the new design is to actually take hold and improve things Admin users are the most often neglected but they can stop a system in its tracks if they don’t buy into it

Where to use personas Personas can be used at all points in the design cycle Empathise – personas help you understand different user groups, including how they feel and what they want Define – personas should drive the way a problem is formed. Who has the problem? Why is it a problem for them? Ideate – personas can help you walk through different alternatives to explain how they would work and why Prototype – personas should be conceptually built into the prototype. You’re building a sociotechnical system after all, not just software. Test – personas help you stratify your sampling to understand which users are happy with different parts of the design and what they might prefer

Exercise Last class we focused on Blackboard and online learning resources In groups, create a persona for some group you feel are important and interesting in this design domain

Reading Myers, I., & Myers, P. (2010). Gifts differing: Understanding personality type. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Smith, R. W., Faro, D., & Burson, K. A. (2012). More for the many: The influence of entitativity on charitable giving. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(5), 961-976. Västfjäll, D., Slovic, P., Mayorga, M., & Peters, E. (2014). Compassion fade: Affect and charity are greatest for a single child in need. PloS one, 9(6), e100115. Walker, D., & Vul, E. (2014). Hierarchical encoding makes individuals in a group seem more attractive. Psychological Science, 25(1), 230-235.