1. An introduction to personas
UCD Hoorcollege blok 1 week 6

2. Learning goals By the end of the colleges and reading you should:
Understand what a persona is in UCD
Know how the advantages of personas
Be able to create a primary persona for a specific product or user problem
Have created a persona based on user observation and interviews

3. Agenda
What are personas?
Why use personas?
Creating personas
Summary

4. What are personas?

5. Personas are fictional archetypes but based on research into real users

6. (In reality you create more than one persona)

7. Personas are archetypes not stereotypes
A very typical example of a person or thing
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Oervorm, oerbeeld => grondvorm
Source: Van Dale
Stereotype:
A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Vastliggend beeld, karakterisering
Source: Van Dale

8. Definition of persona (for UCD)
A persona is a fictional archetype created by organizations for use in the development of products (especially software and online products).
Personas are based on ethnographic research into users and should not be “made-up” by UCD teams. The use of ethnographic research helps the creation of a number of archetype users that can be used to develop products that deliver positive user experiences. By feeding in real data, ethnographic research allows UCD teams to avoid generating stereotype users, that may bear no relation to the actual user’s reality.
Source: Charlie Mulholland

9. Why use personas?

10. The problems of product development

11. The advantage of personas

12. Advantages of personas
UCD teams carry-out research
Allow checking the (filtered) information from other stakeholders
Provide an alternative “grounding” point
Encourage story-telling
Allow role-playing
Communication
Internal within team
External with other stakeholders
Generate commitment

13. Risks You get it wrong in research
Wrong user paradigm
Poor interpretation of ethnographic research
You do not obtain “buy-in” to your personas
Within your team
With other stakeholders
Quality of research and believability are key here

14. Creating personas

15. Persona creation process

16. Goals and personas
Understanding user goals are essential to developing products
To be effective personas must have goals based on the real goals your interview subjects had
Alan Cooper identifies 3 types of user goals (About Face 2.0)
Life goals
Experience goals
End goals

17. Types of user goals
Type of goal
Examples
Use in persona
Life goal -
The goals a user has for the life as a whole
To succeed
To enjoy life
To have fulfilling relationships
Behave ethically
Little direct use
However if a product can help achieve these goals it will be more interesting to the user - so keep them in mind
Experience goals -
How the user wants their experiences to be in general (and so with the product). This is their definition of a good experience
Not feel stupid
Not make mistakes
Enjoy using the product
Feel in charge
These are very important as these define the user experience with the product
They are usually similar to most people
End goals -
The goals that user want to achieve by using the product.
To stay in contact with friends
To know what your next appointment is
To show off
Very important
If your product does not achieve these, then has failed
The aim of a UCD process is to allow the user to achieve their end goals and have a good experience while doing this

18. Persona types
If you have created a number of persona hypotheses and interviewed all of them, you will have more than one type of user
This is exactly what you want to achieve
Cooper identifies 6 persona types
Primary user
Secondary user
Supplemental user
Customer
Served user
Negative

19. Behaviours
Behaviours (gedragen) are ways that people act when they use the product
Examples of behaviours for a phone:
What do they use if for?
What functions do they use? Where do they keep their phone?
Where do they use their phone?
When do they use it?
Do they use the help function / manuals or do they learn by trail and error?
How comfortable are they using it?
Do they get frustrated?
Do they show it off?
Etc…

20. Using behaviours
Behaviours are based on the ways your research subjects
Behaviours describe how a persona will react when they use the product to achieve their goals
When we create scenarios we will use the behaviours to help us construct realistic stories
Behaviours are essential to make a persona usable

21. Persona types Type Description Use Primary
The main target user for the product.
You develop your product for this persona and their goals
There can only be one primary user persona for a product
Secondary
Other users who are mostly satisfied with the product, but have some additional requirements
Allow you to “tweak” thing to account for special needs
There should be no more than 2 secondary personas
Supplemental
Not primary or secondary users, happy with the main product
Use to keep other stakeholders happy
Customer
The product customer (the buyer)
Useful for keeping in mind the needs of other stakeholders
Served
Personas that do not use the product, but are served by the use of the product
In certain situations the served persona can be useful (e.g. medical equipment)
Negative
Personas of the user who will not be considered in the product
Closes discussion about “super users”

22. The blok assignment will focus on primary personas
Type
Description
Use
Primary
The main target user for the product.
You develop your product for this persona and their goals
There can only be one primary user persona for a product
Secondary
Other users who are mostly satisfied with the product, but have some additional requirements
Allow you to “tweak” thing to account for special needs
There should be no more than 2 secondary personas
Supplemental
Not primary or secondary users, happy with the main product
Use to keep other stakeholders happy
Customer
The product customer (the buyer)
Useful for keeping in mind the needs of other stakeholders
Served
Personas that do not use the product, but are served by the use of the product
In certain situations the served persona can be useful (e.g. medical equipment)
Negative
Personas of the user who will not be considered in the product
Closes discussion about “super users”

23. Summary
Personas are archetypes (not stereotypes) that are based on ethnographic research
Personas are a powerful tool as they ensure research, aid communication and build commitment
Personas must have experience and end goals
The aim of UCD is to allow user end goals to be met while ensuring that their experience goals are not forgotten
To be useful a persona must also have behaviours that reflect how your research subjects act when they use the product
You develop different persona types, but you develop a product for the primary persona
In the blok assignment you only need to develop a primary persona

24. Next week
We will be looking at how to put personas into use via scenarios
Please make sure your primary persona is finished