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Personas
Personas
• You have done research into who would like to
use your site. Now you know.
• So you are designing a web site for a certain
type of user, or a handful of different types of
users.
• At this point you develop Personas.
• A Persona is a profile of a typical user.
Sometimes called User Models or User Profiles
Personas
• Made up from a series of interviews with real
people.
• Can be a real person you came across during
data gathering
• Includes:
– A name
– A social history
– A set of goals that drive the design of the site
Arthur
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Age 26
Occupation: Teacher
Married, one child
Technical profile: Uncomfortable with technology.
Has Apple Mac, broadband wifi connection.
• Internet: 4-6 hours a week, mainly
entertainment & shopping
• Wants to turn his hobby of making furniture into
a business
Personas
• By looking at the goals of a single persona,
designers try to satisfy the needs of many
users who have similar goals.
• Even more effective when there is a group of
personas. Can then aim to satisfy a greater
number of users.
• Seems counter-intuitive, but those who use it
say it's very effective
• A relatively inexpensive technique
Personas
• Sometimes you analyse data on site users and
find they all have different goals and
backgrounds. Sometimes this can be boiled
down into a small number of personas.
• Design team can think more clearly with
concrete characters: "If you design it like that,
what happens when Grandma tries to use it?"
A Typical Persona Contains:
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A Name
A picture
Age
Occupation
Gender
Education
Family
Hobbies
Disabilities if any
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Type of computer
Internet connection
Browser
Feelings about privacy
Design tastes
Goals
Reasons for using your
site
Personas
• For each persona, describe what they will do
on your site, and why it's important to them.
• If you can't think of a compelling reason why
they would visit your site instead of doing
something else, they probably won't!
• Try and produce at least three personas for
your site
Now You!!
• You all know Napier
University's web site.
• Write down a persona
for a potential user
• What does the persona
need, that they get
from this site?
• (5 mins)
When to use Personas
• Most useful when based on actual data about
real users
• Data on real users may be based on surveys,
interviews, focus groups or ethnography (=
observation of workplaces)
• Most useful when context is a major factor
(e.g. work environment)
Use of Personas
• It is good to design for everybody, but sooner
or later you will need to optimise on one or
more user groups.
• You will need to make trade-off between
quality and cost.
• Will it be a general purpose design or will it be
especially attractive to certain groups?
• Is the visual style of the site for children, or
geeks, or women?
When to use Personas
• You must decide on who you are not going to
please. This decision needs to be
documented. Try and keep this segment small
(< 2%)
Audience Splitting
• Having identified your personas, it may be too
difficult to satisfy their needs using on web
site. In this case, many designers try audience
splitting.
• For example, on a university web site, the
users will be prospective students, current
students, staff and alumni. All have wildly
different needs... So you split them off in
different directions at the front page.
Examples of non-targeted sites
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Google
Yahoo
Altavista
CNN
MSNBC
The Washington Post
....these sites are for everybody.
Examples of targeted sites
• The association for
Information Systems,
www.aisnet.org
• Hilary Thacker,
www.hilarysbazaar.com
• The Scottish Storytelling
centre,
http://www.scottishstor
ytellingcentre.co.uk/
 Researchers, teachers &
students of information
systems
 Students, teachers and
performers of belly
dancing
 Storytellers, those
wanting to hire a
storyteller, people who
like listening to stories
Product Design
• In the old days, people designed good
products and other people came and bought
them... Or they didn't.
• Nowadays there must be a business plan
before a product is designed and
manufactured.
• The business plan lists target users
• A web site is a product.
Video
• (video on persona development, followed by
"what have you just seen")
Sources
• Benyon, D., Turner, P., and Turner, S. (2005)
Designing Interactive Systems, Addison Wesley,
Harlow, UK.
• Brinck, T., Gergle, D., and Wood, S. T. (2002)
Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that
Work, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, USA
• Garrett, J.J, (2003) The Elements of User
Experience: User-Centred Design for the Web,
New Riders, Indianapolis, USA.
• Lazar, J., (2001) User Centred Web Development,
Jones and Bartlett, Sudbury, USA