1. IS4445 Principles of Interaction Design Lecture 2: Personas
Rob Gleasure

2. Course structure Or more specifically Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: Empathise 1 (personas)
Week 3: Empathise 2 (empathy maps)
Week 4: Define 1 (journey maps)
Week 5: Define 2 (value curves)
Week 6: Ideate 1 (mind maps)
Week 7: Ideate 2 (6 hats)
Week 8: Prototyping 1 (storyboards)
Week 9: Prototyping 2 (wireframes)
Week 10: Test 1 (Testing cards)
Week 11: Test 2 (UX audits)
Week 12: Revision

3. IS4445 Today’s session Online discussion Personas What Why
How (a template)
When
Where
Persona design exercise

4. An impossible starting point
We need to design for humans
Every human is different
Solve for x…

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. A template for persona-building
Courtesy of Xtensio (

9. 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

10. A template for persona-building
What’s their personality?
Extraversion vs. Introversion
Do they take energy from the inside (introvert) or outside (extrovert) world?
Sensing vs. Intuition
Do they prefer to get information and then try and make sense of it (sensing), or do they prefer to think first, then look for information (intuition)?
Thinking vs. Feeling
Do they rely more on logic (thinking) or their gut (feeling) to make decisions?
Judging vs. Perceiving
Do they prefer to be organised and have a plan (judging) or improvise and stay flexible (perceiving)?

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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?

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. For next week During class Find your groupmates!
Each person describe one interesting past or present workplace
Decide among your group which of those workplaces to work with as a group (you can always change this later for your report)
Write a short description of the selected workplace (using a pseudonym)
This should only be a couple of sentences – just enough for your classmates to understand your persona and make suggestions
Sketch out a key persona using the template provided (or more, if you have time)

18. For next week For next week After class (as a group)
Write up your persona either by adapting the blank template on the course website or by going to and selecting Templates -> User Persona (one person will have to sign up but it’s free)*
Take a picture and convert it to a pdf
Upload the pdf and your written description to the group section
Once you’re all happy with it, post it the forum (ideally by Friday)
* You can create it any other way you like, this just seems easiest

19. For next week For next week After class (individually)
Have a look at some other group(s) persona and make a suggestion
What do you like?
What do you think could be clearer, e.g.
Is anything unclear to you as an outside reader?
Do any of the combinations of traits/motivations/personality/etc. surprise you or seem particularly interesting?
Note: we keep the group report to one submission, 30th November

20. 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),
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), e
Walker, D., & Vul, E. (2014). Hierarchical encoding makes individuals in a group seem more attractive. Psychological Science, 25(1),