Personas

A persona is a description of a user archetype that can serve as a guide in the design process. A persona may be synthesised from a series of "field activities" such as interviews and work observations resulting in a representation of an individual that embody the characteristics of a target user population. The descriptions are summarised in a 1-2 page description that includes things as education, goals, skills, attitudes, job description and personal details such as name, education, maritual status, and favorite sport to bring the character to life.

The origin of personas most likely comes from the theatrical tradition. In playing a character, an actor will try to acquire the mindset of his/her character or in other words to become that character. This is not only used to improve the acting performance per se but also as a strategy for remembering the lines: If an actor is performing a classical play and has been successful in acquiring the mindset of her character, it becomes less a question of 'remembering the lines' in a given scene of the play and more a question of feeling what character would say and do in such a situation.

Designers use personas in the same way as actors use their characters: Whenever it is not practical or possible to consult with real users, the designer can turn to the personas for help. Acquiring the mindset of his persona, the designer may ask himself or his co-designers: "In this Christmas gift shopping scenario, what would Alice or Stephen [personas] do, given their financial situation and their knowledge of internet shopping?" By enacting this gift shopping scenario in the role of the respective personas, the designers may gain insight without having to consult real users. The enactment can also simply serve as a "compliance check" that probes how well the design (in its current state) complies with some of the expected users, their goals, and their enacted situational constraints.

It should be noted that the use of personas is not a complete substitution for consulting with the real users, nor a way of bringing the number of necessary user sessions down. Rather, it is a way of having a continuous presence of a set of users in the back of the designer's head or, as mentioned above, a quick-and-dirty way of user testing or brain-storming without any real users. It should also be noted that personas should be specifically made for the current design problem and thus not context-independent like "a generic marketing man" persona. The personas should also have clear goals, for example what they want to achieve by using the product being designed.

Personas are not the first example of practices/insights from theatre being 'imported' and used as design practices, see for example Laurel (1993) for many good examples.

Please note: Personas are also known as 'user archetypes', 'target customer characterisations', and 'user profiles'.

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Michael Van Der Steen says: Jan 1st, 1970

#1

The power of personas is that they are direved from fieldstudies. These studies are conducted not only to see "how" people work or do something, but also to grasp "why" they are doing it. It is this "why" aspect that makes personas by defining ranges of behavioral patterns. By defining the "goals" people have you will have a greater understanding of the needs wich ultimately allows you to make scenarios; stories about how users go about and trying to achieve a goal.

Nick says: Oct 2nd, 2009

#2

They don't only derive, they can be the basis for. That is, who do you study?

 

You say: Mar 20th, 2010

#3

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