Module 05: Personas and Scenarios

Personas and Scenarios

What is a persona? !"A persona is a user archetype you can use to help guide decisions about product features, navigation, interactions, and even visual design." — Kim Goodwin


What is a persona? !"A persona encapsulates and explains the most critical behavioral data in a way that designers and stakeholders can understand, remember, and relate to. Unlike simple lists of findings or other types of models, personas use storytelling to engage the social and emotional aspects of our brains, which helps each team member either visualize the best product behavior or see why the recommended design is good." — also Kim Goodwin


What is a persona? !





Props

http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/06/28/ kim-goodwin-using-scenarios-to-design-intuitive-experiences/

Podcast transcript: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/06/28/kim-goodwin-using-scenarios-to-design-intuitive-experiences/

Why personas?

Remember, you are not the user. The user might not be the user. !The "average" user doesn’t exist, and we can’t design for everyone. !The trick is designing for the right people. !(Pro tip: pewinternet.org is a great resource for learning about digital users.)

And why?

Personas can help us gain empathy and insight.

http://www.teachthought.com/learning/the-role-of-empathy-in-learning/

Example

Example

name

type/title

image

age

summary quotation

narrative that includes mental model, drive, concerns, frustrations, others relevant to

understanding the behavior pattern

Example

Personas

Everything in the persona’s descriptions tells you something important about her attitudes, goals, behaviors, plans.

Personas

Even fictitious details (based on composites from your research) help make this seem like a real person. With whom all team members and stakeholders want to be empathic.

Personas

What can they be used for? !— Defining and designing the product — Communicating with stake-holders about your audience — Building consensus and rallying a team around a goal —Marketing the product — Developing documentation — Even prioritizing bug fixes

Personas are NOT

What are personas NOT? It’s true, it can be confusing. !— NOT the "average user" — NOT a market segment — Not a role (in the sense of enterprise software development) !

Why do personas work?

They encourage us to relate to users in human ways. Without having to actually handle live humans during the design process.


They present collected data as people, not abstract ideas. !


Quick! Think of "wizard". !

Got it?


Was it… !


Was it… !

(grey or white, doesn’t really matter)


Was it… !


Was it… !


Was it… !


Would you react to these the same way? !Would you design for these the same way? !People engage with people in a special way. !


And don’t forget the storytelling. !"Good data, rigorous analysis, and compelling, human presentation are all essential to making personas work." — Kim Goodwin

Counterpoint

"[T]he more we use proxies to convey information, the more we are relying on all of the communicating parties having the same set of reference points. That’s why it’s so important in a design process that any type of information vessel be treated not as a static artifact, but as a material that we can work with to clarify interpretations and surface assumptions." — Dan Soltzberg (http:///www.portigal.com/blog/major-mccheese/) !A persona is not a category to market to. And don’t forget there are real users you need to serve.

Building Personas

"Creating personas involves identifying the critical behavior patterns and turning them into a set of useful characterizations… . It’s entirely possible that your initial impression of the pattern is correct, but in many cases the obvious pattern is based on demographics rather than behavior, or is otherwise missing some critical factor." — Kim Goodwin

Building Personas

REMEMBER: !— Find patterns — GOOB! Get Out Of the Building, do field work

Building Personas

See Kim’s book for a more rigorous, in-depth process (useful in large companies or projects)… !Let’s go with a more lightweight and rapid approach.

Building Personas

See Kim’s book for a more rigorous, in-depth process (useful in large companies or projects)… !Let’s go with a more lightweight and rapid approach.

Jeff Gothelf, @jboogie

Building Personas

Lightweight Personas !— A model of what we know today — Low investment— Easy to improve — (And as you can see, all you need is pen and paper.)

Building Personas

What info do we need? !— Name and sketch — Demographic info — Needs— How we address needs !

Building Personas

Group exercise: create two personas !— Name and sketch — Demographic info — Needs— How we address needs !— Each group will share one persona with the room !

Building Personas

What did you find? !!

Scenarios

Not the same as personas. !!

!!

Scenarios

Not the same as personas. !!

!!

User stories and roles are often narrow problem definitions. !!

!!

Why Scenarios?

User stories and roles can represent single needs, single emotions. !Your product or service shouldn’t. !Think of the user, facing the whole shebang.

Why Scenarios?

Building Scenarios

The end goal of buying a TV is WATCHING TV. !It’s not having the pleasure of buying a dang TV. !For all journeys: What starts it? What steps along the way?

Building Scenarios

DO !— Where — When — Why— How — How often— With whom— With what tools & information

FEEL !— About their tools and tasks as they stand

WANT !— To learn? — To accomplish? — To feel?

Building Scenarios

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

Do

Feel

Want

Building Scenarios

Note: !These are communication and generative tools. !They don’t prioritize issues. !Though they can help find common pain points. !Or even a business case.

Building Scenarios

Partner exercise (20 minutes): !1. Tell the story of a recent episode (~10m) !2. Outline the steps ("I need…" to "I’m happy") across the top !For each step: 1. Do: task flow, info shared, tools used, etc. 2. Feel: about that experience 3. Want: to learn, to accomplish, to feel

Building Scenarios

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

Do

Feel

Want

Sharing time

Building Scenarios

Scenarios are about what happens in the magic future, not the past (or the present). !(From an awesome Kim Goodwin workshop.)

Building Scenarios

Make a to-do list. !Each persona’s typical "journeys" (maybe 2-3). !They can be big or small journeys, but always from the start to the finish. !A person’s whole day may be one scenario, or constant task-switching.

Building Scenarios

Building Scenarios

Building Scenarios

What can you fix? !Reduce frustration? !Reduce anxiety? !Reduce the user’s workload: — cognitive — memory — motor !

Building Scenarios

What can you fix? !"What would a thoughtful human do?" — Goodwin

Building Scenarios

Let’s give it a shot.

Building Scenarios

Let’s share.

Use Cases

Building Scenarios

If you’ve worked with project requirements…

Next up:

Maps and flows

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Module 05: Personas and Scenarios