![]() ![]() “An Empirical Study Demonstrating How Different Design Constraints, Project Organization and Contexts Limited the Utility of Personas” by Ronkko et al.Two interesting empirical studies examine this practice: they are not “market segments” (such as “18-25s who exercise”) primarily defined in term of demographic attributes personas are users rather than buyers.they are not “user roles” (such as sales person, administrator, etc.) primarily defined in terms of tasks or job descriptions personas put the emphasis on goals and behaviours.Personas should not be confused with other conceptual tools used in defining software requirements or in product marketing: Knowing that the product will be used by “Eileen, 72, retired”, a developer will weigh more accurately the consequences of filling up a modal dialog with 50 tiny dials and settings, which would not necessarily be the case if they thought in terms of “the user”. Instead, personas provide designers and developers with an anchor for justifying design choices: rather than appeal to vague notions of “ease of use”, they suggest questions of “what Amanda would do” or “whether Bob will understand” a given feature, interaction, or visual cue.īecause personas are part of the team’s shared assumptions, each team member is made aware of the consequences of design choices. In a nutshell, personas are an answer to the observation that a designer who tries to please everybody ends up pleasing nobody, because too many compromises kill the product’s integrity. The biographies are displayed in the team room. ![]() ![]() Personas are concise and visual a common layout is a single page including a photograph (from stock shots or magazine cutouts), a name and social or professional details: “Amanda Jones, 34, press officer at a major food retailing organization, etc.”Īs a software product is generally intended for use by more than one category of person, with potentially different preferences and expectations of the product, the team creates one persona for each category it deems important to serve well. (In Alan Cooper’s concise terms: “make up pretend users and design for them”.) When the project calls for it – for instance when user experience is a major factor in project outcomes – the team crafts detailed, synthetic biographies of fictitious users of the future product: these are called “personas”. ![]()
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