What Chuck, Cynthia and Bob Can Do for You: A Critical Analysis on the Use of Personas in Usability Design What Chuck, Cynthia and Bob Can Do for You: A Critical Analysis on the Use of Personas in Usability Design Kerry MacDonald Comm 597 November 24, 2003

Personas  Personas are hypothetical archetypes that drive the development process of user interface design.  Personas are behavior-based models that are created through observations and interviews of actual users/customers.  They are not real people, nor do they represent the “average” user.

Personas  They use narrative descriptions, personal details and behaviors to define goals and needs.  Interfaces are designed to satisfy the needs and goals of the personas.  Personas “enhance the engagement and reality,” creating an “infrastructure for engagement.”* *Grudin & Pruiit, 2002.

Personas  Chuck, Cynthia and Bob were the first goal-oriented personas developed by Alan Cooper.  Although Alan Cooper and his team lead the current persona process development, the concepts have been used for more than ten years.  Personas are similar to (and born from) scenario-based design.

Personas vs. Scenarios  Scenario-based design has been around a lot longer than personas.  Scenarios help focus on users and tasks.  While they can have goals and needs, they do not focus on the user.  Scenarios are an effective tool, but “they are not engaging.” *Grudin & Pruiit, 2002.

Personas vs. Scenarios  Personas are engaging and memorable.  Personas don’t replace scenarios, but “create a foundation on which to build scenarios.” *Grudin & Pruiit, 2002.

Personas in UI Design FORRESTER RESEARCH:*  Found in a study of 20 website owners undergoing major site redesign that the redesign goals were vague and lacked measurable goals.  The research concluded that “measurable user-experience goals are critical to online success.” *

The Persona Process Persona development is a relatively new technique, and there are no definitive rules to developing them.  Personas are developed through ethnographic interviews that are exploratory in nature.  The interviewer uses details to define broad and narrow goals of the users. *

The Persona Process  Patterns emerge and users are grouped by their similar needs, goals and behaviors. *

Defining Personas ESSENTIAL DETAILs:*  Name  Age  Photo  Family & home life information  Work environment (tools & work conditions)  Computer & web proficiency *Cooper, 1999.

Defining Personas  Pet peeves, technical frustrations  Attitudes  Motivations (end results)  Information-seeking habits & favorite resources  Personal & professional goals  Candid quotes *Cooper, 1999.

Types of Personas PRIMARY  Requires a unique interface to meet needs and goals.  Primary’s needs and goals are the main focus in the design/development process SECONDARY  Does not require a unique interface, although their specific needs and goals are considered. NEGATIVE  The non-user: defines needs that do not need to be met.

Example # 1 : BBCi Primary Persona BACKGROUND  36-year-old,single mother.  Lives in Northampton.  Has an AOL account.  Not “wowed” by the web.  Occasionally searches for information on parenting, educational issues, entertainment, holiday planning, consumer issues.  Hectic schedule  Competes with boyfriend for limited time online.  “Web neophyte on the run” MANDY DANIELS* *

Persona Example #2*

Examples BBC Macintosh Microsoft* Research for the Office Suite redesign revealed that four out of five features requested by users already existed *

Personas COMMON UI DESIGN ERRORS:  Letting the latest technology and gadgetry have too much influence on design decisions.  Designers wants and needs driving the design.  Focus on use of function rather than the user of the function.  UI is based on market research, marketing and sales data.

Impact of Personas ANSWERS CRITICAL QUESTIONS THAT A TASK LIST CAN’T:* EXAMPLES:  Which pieces of information are required at what points in the day?  Does the user focus on one thing at a time through completion, or are there interruptions?  Why are they using the product in the first place? *Goodwin, 2001.

Impact of Personas  Facilitates communication between individuals and teams charged with developing UIs.  Personas can identify a wide range of direct and indirect goals, such as experience goals, end goals, life goals.  Addresses unreliability of direct user input. “Users are experts on their own pain but generally not on how best to cure the disease.” –Kim Goodwin, Cooper Design

Impact of Personas  “Communication about personas should be multifaceted, multimodal, ongoing, and progressively unfolding.”*  Personas must be specific to the problem. *Grudin & Pruitt, 2002.

Drawbacks to Using Personas  Creating personas can be time-consuming and expensive.  Developing the right persona is challenging and difficult to validate during the process.  Costs of developing UI for the wrong persona are high.  Keeps users at arms-length (It is easier to not interact with the customer).  May not always be the best means to develop an interface (example:software vs. content).

PITFALLS:  Designers can get too caught up in the character details.  Personas created but never utilized as a tool.  Designers select irrelevant details to create the wrong persona.  “Persona mania” causes designers to abandon other user-centered processes.  Personas are reused for a variety of problems. (Example: behaviors related to content management are different to behaviors related to manipulating financial data (Goodwin,2002). Drawbacks to Using Personas

Alternative Methodology * RASHMI SINHA  Researching persona development that is quantitative.  Feels interviews are not the appropriate way to retrieve data on representative users.  Uses “exploratory statistics” to identify goal and need patterns.  Wants to “reduce the method to its essence” as a quick way for designers to understand their users.  Cooper sees no evidence that accurate personas can be developed through quantitative data.

Alternative Methodology * JARED SPOOL  Has issues with “inter-creator reliability:” Do multiple persona creators create the same persona from the same data? (Goodwin says YES.)  Doesn’t see the point of spending time developing fictional users when there are many real users out there from which to cull information.  Persona development can begin with market research in early stages of group development.  The persona is defined by a living person.  Designers can ask the living person questions.

Conclusions THERE IS NO “MAGIC TOOL.”  Personas are one of many tools that can be used by designers. ADDITIONAL RESEARCH IS NEEDED TO:  Further validate the use of personas.  Develop more concrete methods of persona creation  Explore the various schools of development.

* “We need research like this to help us understand how we validate and improve the techniques, allowing more people to be successful with them, which meets everyone’s goal of a world with better, less frustrating, more usable technology.” -Jared Spool