Understanding Users

.. It’s all about empathy…

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Learning OutcomesLast week we discussed why it is

important to know your usersThis week:

◦Understand Personas◦Know how to create a persona◦Know how to produce scenarios

MethodsAsk users (start 14.02 and then

20)Observe usersStudy users from things they doModel users….

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Modelling Users using PersonasWidely promoted by Alan Cooper

as an integral component of Goal – Centred (Directed) design

(Refer to www.interactionbydesign.com/presentations/olsen_persona_toolkit.pdf -)

Personas are user archetypes that we construct from behavioural data gathered during user interviews and field observations.

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What is a persona?Personas are fictitious, specific,

concrete representations of target users.

Idea is:◦Personas put a face on the user that

serves as a design target◦Convey information to the

developers / team

What is a Persona?Description of an ‘example’ user

◦not necessarily a real personUse as surrogate user

◦what would Betty thinkDetails matter

◦makes her ‘real’

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The Power of PersonasThe personas are given realistic

names, faces, and personalities to foster user empathy within a product team.

Personas can be used later to evaluate the interactive product

a critical element of personas—beyond capturing typical user behavior patterns and roles—is capturing user motivations in the form of specific goals.

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Creating Personas

Five Stages:1. Family Planning2. Conception and

gestation3. Birth and

maturation4. Adulthood5. Lifetime

achievement and retirement

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Family PlanningBefore you begin developing the

persona you need to understand the problem you are trying to solve.

Are personas going to help?Four steps: Building a team,

researching organisation, creating action plan, collecting data

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Conception and GestationPhase were you create your personasNeed to decide how many to create and

how to prioritise them:Conception

1. Identify ad hoc personas2. Process data3. Create Skeletons

Gestation1. Prioritize the skeletons2. Develop selected skeletons into personas3. Validate your personas

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Birth and MaturationMarks the transition from

persona creation to persona useEnrich your communication

strategy- convince core team of the value of personas

Introduce the persona method and your personas

Progressively educate and maintain focus on your personas

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Persona AdulthoodPut the personas to use!People allocated personas –

responsible to ensure decisions are acceptable to that persona

They act as reference points – what would X or Y think

Prioritise features and functionality

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Lifetime achievement and retirementEstablish return on investmentEstablish what to do with them at

the end of the project◦Reuse◦Retire

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Example in useVistaPrint a site that enables

users to design and print thingsHad a web application that

enabled you to customise everything

User research conducted identified customisation not loved by everyone, some people in a hurry just wanted to select a template.

Designed a persona for this group.

Example PersonaBetty is 37 years old, She has been Warehouse Manager for five years and worked for Simpkins Brothers Engineering for twelve years. She didn’t go to university, but has studied in her evenings for a business diploma. She has two children aged 15 and 7 and does not like to work late. She did part of an introductory in-house computer course some years ago, but it was interrupted when she was promoted and could no longer afford to take the time. Her vision is perfect, but her right-hand movement is slightly restricted following an industrial accident 3 years ago. She is enthusiastic about her work and is happy to delegate responsibility and take suggestions from her staff. However, she does feel threatened by the introduction of yet another new computer system (the third in her time at SBE).

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Personas are (almost) realGive them a nameGive them a pictureGive them a family and a homeCelebrate their birthdays!!….imagine them out and about

doing things……

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Scenarios“The persona is static, but the figure becomes

dynamic when it is inserted into the actions of the scenario. In the scenario, the persona will be in a context, in a specific situation and have a specific goal.” Nielsen (2003)

Used by programmers to also design and program test cases for their own programs, sometimes before even writing the program itself.

HCI approaches this in a similar fashion by creating scenarios they expect users to encounter or run through. One major distinction is that scenarios cover the most likely of cases and only sometimes include the edge cases. They will never, ever, cover every possible scenario.

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Creating Scenarios“A scenario is a concise

description of a persona using a product to achieve a goal” (Cooper).◦concise : short but complete;

breadth instead of depth◦product : assume the product

(software or physical device) exists, even if it doesn’t

◦goal : the reason why we perform a task

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Why Use Scenarios?Scenarios help us validate our designScenarios help us check our

assumptionsSuccessful Scenarios help us transfer

theoretical/conceptual design to “wire frame” design

Like Personas, Scenarios create a shared understanding of the end users –for the entire design team (including designers, marketing folk, engineers, executives, etc).

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ExampleFifa Ultimate Team - Card Trading

Game in which you build a team and compete

Steve has been playing ultimate team for several weeks and is building an English team with a formation 442. He has just bought Frank Lampard and his position is CDM (Central Defensive Midfield), he wishes to change this to CM (Central Midfield) to fit with his formation.

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Fifa 12

Fifa does not assist the user in completing task – you have to search through all formation cards – it is not possible just to select one

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Easy to add another option next to position e.g. change

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Fifa Example Cont..Steve has noticed that an Inform

Wayne Rooney (card with higher rating) is available. He wishes to find out how much it costs and if he can afford it he wishes to bid on it.

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Fifa 12

Again it is not possible just to search for individual players – could alter it to filter on nationality but after 6 pages still no sign of the player

Example

Steve texts using multitap, he is sending a message to a number he doesn’t have in his contacts, it is a girl he met on the train and he wants to meet up with her - he has the number on a scrap of paper. He is walking down towards Euston Station, it is getting quite dark, he is texting without checking the screen,,,

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Scenarios …what will users want to do?

step-by-step walkthrough◦what can they see (sketches, screen

shots)◦what do they do (keyboard, mouse

etc.)◦what are they thinking?

use and reuse throughout design

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Scenario – movie player

Brian would like to see the new film “Moments of Significance” and wants to invite Alison, but he knows she doesn’t like “arty” films. He decides to take a look at it to see if she would like it and so connects to one of the movie sharing networks. He uses his work machine as it has a higher bandwidth connection, but feels a bit guilty. He knows he will be getting an illegal copy of the film, but decides it is OK as he is intending to go to the cinema to watch it. After it downloads to his machine he takes out his new personal movie player. He presses the ‘menu’ button and on the small LCD screen he scrolls using the arrow keys to ‘bluetooth connect’ and presses the select button. On his computer the movie download program now has an icon showing that it has recognised a compatible device and he drags the icon of the film over the icon for the player. On the player the LCD screen says “downloading now”, a percent done indicator and small whirling icon. … … …HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12 27

Writing Good ScenariosBrainstorm, within the context of

our problem domain, the goals our Personas will have

Write the Scenarios for a specific Persona

Go for breadth rather than depth – it is more important to describe things from start to finish rather than in exhaustive detail

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Next Week

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