1. Users, user classes & personas /LP Web Site Design: Early Research IWM14 Information Services for the Web

2. Users, user classes & personas /LP Users, user classes & personas Identify your end-users Identify relevant characteristics Draw out implications of user characteristics for your design Represent key users as personas

3. Users, user classes & personas /LP Your turn List some users for an academic conference Web site…

4. Users, user classes & personas /LP Users and their characteristics “The remarkable diversity of human abilities, backgrounds, cognitive styles and personalities challenges the interaction designer. A pre-schooler playing a graphic computer game is a long way from a reference librarian doing bibliographical searches for anxious and hurried patrons. Similarly a professional programmer using a new operating system is a long way from a highly trained and experienced air traffic controller. Finally, a student learning a computer-assisted instruction session is a long way from a hotel reservations clerk serving customers for many hours per day.” Ben Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface

5. Users, user classes & personas /LP What are the specific distinctions you can unpack from Shneiderman's neatly designed pairs of users? They include at least: –age –domain experience –computer experience –degree of pressure –frequency of use –freedom of choice in system use –direct vs indirect use…

6. Users, user classes & personas /LP Your turn List potentially interesting characteristics of two types of user identified for the academic conference Web site.

7. Users, user classes & personas /LP Implications of user characteristics? Postgraduate student CharacteristicFor this userImplication Direct/indirect Education/literacy skills Language skills Domain knowledge Existing knowledge Discretionary/mandatory Training?

8. Users, user classes & personas /LP Personas How to make sure the user isn't forgotten/made elastic? Pin them to the wall, in the form of personas for core user classes, describe a specific individual who might be central to that class define - gender, age, personality, background, hobbies, work role and so on. assign name and graphic - cartoon, photo, magazine cutout during design process, refer to the persona(s) rather than speaking about a user

9. Users, user classes & personas /LP Personas for conference site Skip Whitby heads a Research Program on Digital Television at the University of Carpentaria in Northern Australia. Obviously he'd love to come to the conference, but departmental travel funds are tight this year. He's hoping to find a lot of useful information on the Web site.

10. Users, user classes & personas /LP Personas for conference site Martin Jensen is a lecturer in Social Studies at the University of Lilleborg in Denmark. He may bring his girlfriend and 2 year old daughter with him and make a holiday of their time in the UK. The family are strict vegetarians. He's never been to the UK before and has no idea where Brighthelmstone is.