Putting Personas to Work

Getting Personas Adopted Throughout Your Organization

Presented by Carol Smith @Carologic

IIBA MeetingMarch 2013

User Experience Prof Assoc

Supports people

who research, design, and evaluate

the user experience

of products and services.

www.uxpa.org

Which Student?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrjkbh/ via http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en http://www.flickr.com/photos/caharley72/ (Christopher Alison Photography) via http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0

Rick Connie

Benefits

• Efficient and effective

• Team learns and remember

• Reduced influence based on _________

• Better products

• Help teams avoid:

• Designing for themselves/technology

• Designing for everyone

Controversy

• Irrelevant information

• “Pseudo-science”

• Not trying to be scientific

• Statistical methods used to analyze data

• Rigorous, repeatable methods

• Result in mostly qualitative data

The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin

Selling Personas

Getting Buy-In for Personas

• We don’t need UX – we know our users

• Tell us the story

• What are they really doing?

• What are their goals?

• Roadblocks?

Selling Internally

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg

Introducing Personas

Progressive Disclosure

• Like real-life, dating

• You are the match-maker

• Create opportunities to get to know them

• Tell the story, effectively

• Support recall of significant details

Progressive Disclosure

Tell the Story

• Clarify how the personas are to be used

• Support design and development

• Limitations

• For each persona:

• Goals, Needs

• How use product

• Challenges

• “Irrelevant Information” creates the mnemonic

Make it Real

• Introduce Artifacts

• Encourage and answer questions

Get The Persona To Work

Share what you learn

Successful Programs

• Form a team that includes product/project team members

• The team:

• Supports persona development

• Reviews personas regularly

• Advocates for personas

• Watches for opportunities

Team Leader

• Curates personas

• Tracks work that may influence personas

• Identifies opportunities to enhance them

Keep Personas Alive

• Make opportunities to sew them into culture

• Regular touch points

• Refresh documentation regularly

• E-mail addresses for personas

Working Sessions

• Include them at meetings

• Role play or “channel” the persona

• Review of interface thru eyes of Persona

• Analyze competition

• Review stories/scenarios

What would they do? Would they use this?

The User is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web by Steve Mulder and Ziv Yaar.

Activities

• Panel with “Personas” (role playing)

• Individual teams, products, etc.

• Answer questions in character

• Meet & Greet

• Birthday party

Artifacts

• Public

• Posters

• Large Boards

• Personal

• Persona

• Reference Sheets

• Books

Connect to Project Work

Managing Personas

Communication Plan

• What to communicate

• Progressive disclosure - Highlights

• Updates

• Tips for use

• When

• To whom (team, stakeholders, etc.)

• How (Web site, Email, etc.)

Plan for Updating Personas

• Ongoing work

• Include open questions in new projects.

• Include in planning templates

• Usability study triggers a persona review.

• Communication Plan

• Regular reviews.

• Plan for distribution of updates.

Reusing Personas

• Up-to-date personas and profiles used:

• Indefinitely for same product

• Goals and Needs must remain static

• Inform new persona - preliminary context

Not Repurposed

• For different:

• Products

• Scenarios

• Needs and goals

Persona Teams (Families)

• Extend - include all aspects of experience

• Complex set of products

• Group personas in meaningful ways

Example – Online Shopping

• One persona = all Shoppers

• Unlikely

• More likely:

• Small set of personas for each role

• Few more for additional roles

Online Shopping (cont)

Share What You Know

• Personas interact at various times

• In person

• Virtual “handshakes”

• Convey to the team:

• Where occur?

• When?

• Frequency?

• What information is exchanged?

Knowledge Shared

• Clear relationships between personas

• Frequency of interactions

• Needs from each other

• What provide to each other

Different Lenses

• Pain points

• Product, service, experience

• Motivations

• Goals, needs, tasks, occupation, family, and environment

• Commonalities

• Tech use, tech purpose, demographics, occupation, and context of use

Prioritize Relationships

• Which interactions most important?

• Users

• Product functionality

• Visual work flows are ideal

Next Steps

• Identify gaps and plan to fill them.

• Sync with market segments (if they exist).

Start Now

• Conduct research with users

• Create strawman Profiles now

• Expand Profiles into Personas

• Build on what you know

• Keep digging - each project can answer more questions

Do UX Early & Often

• Create Information Radiators

• Personas

• Artifacts

• Schedule of activities

• Tell others about the power of Personas

Recommended Readings

38

Contact

Carol J. Smith

Twitter: @Carologic

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/caroljsmith

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/carologic

Speaker Rate: speakerrate.com/speakers/15585-caroljsmith

Special Thanks

Richard Douglass – previous co-presenter on this material.

@RichardDouglass

http://improvedusability.com/

ReferencesDesigning for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services by Kim Goodwin (one chapter)

The Persona Life-Cycle by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin

The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web by Steve Mulder

The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research by Mike Kuniavsky

Babcock, L. and Sara Laschever. (2008). “Ask For It: How Women can use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want.” Bantam Books.

Godin, Seth. (2010) “Linchpin: Are you Indispensable?” Penguin Group.

Ury. William L. (1991) “Getting Past NO: Negotiating in Difficult Situations.” Bantam.

Fisher, Roger and William L. Ury. (1981) “Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.” Penguin Group.

Kennedy, Gavin. (2004). “Essential Negotiation.” The Economist and Profile Books LTD.

Lavington, Camille. (2004) “You’ve Only Got Three Seconds: How to make the right impression in your business and social life.” Doubleday.

Lewicki, Roy J., et. Al. (2004) “Essentials of Negotiation.” McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Young, Ed. (2011) “Justice is served, but more so after lunch: how food-breaks sway the decisions of judges.” Discover Magazine. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/04/11/justice-is-served-but-more-so-after-lunch-how-food-breaks-sway-the-decisions-of-judges/ Retrieved on October 24, 2011.