User Personas: Who Are We Building This For, Anyway? Faye Thompson, JD, PSM I 17 April 2015 © Frances Faye Thompson

Agenda Introductions What are User Personas? Why do we need them? How to Craft Practice Follow-up Q&A © Frances Faye Thompson

IT by way of International Relations, Economics and Law Avid wineau and dog lover Worked on agile teams since 2006 Amateur Chef Voluntarism Evangelist Still check books out of the library Background © Frances Faye Thompson

What are User Personas? Archetype of a user that defines their Needs Wants Goals Limitations For interacting with the system © Frances Faye Thompson

What They Are Not Merely demographic data Defined only at role level Same from project-to-project ‘Made up’ Just for web design © Frances Faye Thompson

Why User Personas? Concise summary Look beyond personal preferences/assumptions Distinguish among uses of same functionality Visual reminder of who team is supporting Quickly acclimate new team members Provide point of reference across product life- span © Frances Faye Thompson

Why Do Agilists Care? We need them for our User Stories Value People over Processes First step of lean experiments Hypothesize Experiment Learn Adapt © Frances Faye Thompson

User Stories As a __________ I want _________ So that I can _________ ** Without clearly-defined Users, there can be false assumptions around who you are defining stories for ** © Frances Faye Thompson

Use Cases Personas take us deeper than the traditional Actor roles defined in Use Cases: Get to know personalities, not just roles Helps to set boundaries around system behaviors © Frances Faye Thompson

When to Create At the outset of a project Mid-stream If have not been defined yet As new personas are identified When new members join the team © Frances Faye Thompson

What to Include Name Picture Role Personality Attitudes Motivations Values Hobbies Goals for System Interaction Technology Expertise Existing Relationship with Brand/System © Frances Faye Thompson

Example © Frances Faye Thompson

Example © Frances Faye Thompson

Example © Frances Faye Thompson

Example © Frances Faye Thompson

Example © Frances Faye Thompson

Example © Frances Faye Thompson

Practice Your team has been assigned to a project to create an on-line appointment scheduling tool for a veterinary clinic Identify 2-5 potential users of this system © Frances Faye Thompson

Practice Your team has been assigned to a project to create an on- line appointment scheduling tool for a veterinary clinic Choose 1 user and begin to define their persona What you know What you theorize What other information you would like to gather © Frances Faye Thompson

Techniques Direct observation of existing users Review behavioral data from system analytics Review demographic data provided on sign-up Group your research into categories/trends © Frances Faye Thompson

Other Considerations Make them believable Keep number manageable Don’t limit yourself to 2 dimensions Consider negative personas – who are you NOT developing for? Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, should be coincidental © Frances Faye Thompson

Now What? Socialize among the team Give team members their own copies Integrate into BVCs Don’t let your personas stagnate © Frances Faye Thompson

Q & A Any projects that in flight that could benefit from persona definition? © Frances Faye Thompson

Additional Resources Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human BehaviorMental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior by Indi Young The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the SanityThe Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper © Frances Faye Thompson

Shameless Plug May 20 & 21, 2015 Location: The Ohio Union at The Ohio State University Early bird registration is now open! Visit for more info and to registerwww.thepathtoagility.com © Frances Faye Thompson

Continue the Conversation Faye Thompson, JD, © Frances Faye Thompson