The persona method is aimed at talking about the users and representing users in the design process. I (and some of my students9 have experimented with having users present in the initial design process and let users act as personas for innovation. I gave a talk about this in Chicago, Sept 2011. These are my slides from the talk at UX Masterclass in Chicago lene nielsen – codesign with personas
The paper ‘Is stereotyping inevitable when designing with personas‘ gives a good account on user representations and how personas risk stereotyping. The authors gives an overview of the application of personas, and discuss the psychological roots of stereotyping and why it is so powerful.
They give examples of different tactics to counter the tendency to stereotype, such as considering personas as archetypes, using transfer scenarios where users close to the intended users are studied and the knowledge transferred to the personas, using narrative style, and techniques to educate designers on stereotyping.
The paper is really good, but I find that the authors have missed to look into character creation in fiction and film as a mean to avoid stereotyping. My studies of fiction have shown that there are five areas to be adressed in order to avoid stereotyping. The description of a persona should depict the physics, background, psyche, present emotions of the persona, and portray more than one character trait.
Endelig blev jeg færdig med min bog “Persona – brugerfokuseret design“, der er udkommet midt i august på Århus Universitetsforlag. I den anledning har jeg skrevet en artikel til Kommunikationsforum, som jeg også bringer her.
Mennesker forholder sig helst til andre mennesker, ikke til groft forenklede typer eller segmenter. Det er hemmeligheden bag persona, en brugerfokuseret designmetode, som nu breder sig fra it til kommunikation, markedsføring og produktinnovation. Deltagere i fremtidens udviklingsprojekter må tidligt kunne se modtagerne af deres produkter for sig, hvad enten det drejer sig om en internetportal eller om møbler. Udviklere må kunne beskrive nye brugere in persona, som om de med deres forskellige holdninger, ønsker og vaner allerede var godt i gang med at føre et produkts muligheder ud i livet.
En kvalitativ undersøgelse af personas som metode i en række danske virksomheder, juli 2009
Af konsulent Anne Vorre Hansen, cand. scient. anth.
Indhold
1. Introduktion
1.a Undersøgelsesdesign
1.b Den kvalitative undersøgelse
2. Overordnede konklusioner
3. Personas – hvordan?
3.a Beslutningsprocessen
3.b Det konkrete arbejde med metoden
3.c Personas og holdbarhed
Rosa Gudjonsdottir has in June 2010 defended her PhD thesis “Personas and Scenarios in Use.
Read the full dissertation here: http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:319155/FULLTEXT01
ABSTRACT: Personas are fictitious characters that represent the needs of the intended users, and scenarios complementing the personas describe how their needs can be met. The present doctoral thesis considers the usage of personas and scenarios and how they are used in system development projects. The study is motivated by the relative lack of empirical data on the persona method in actual use.The study was carried out in the context of a large international research project called Nepomuk and involved two conceptually dif ferent field studies. On the one hand, field studies in user settings were conducted, which aimed at Continue reading
Using Personas During Design and Documentation
“(…) although demographics and task analysis play an important part in persona creation, personas are more than just a collection of user profiles and groups. You should make them as real as you can. They should embody all the human attributes you’d expect to find in your users. For example, they could be moody, very task oriented, work in a specific type of environment, or even hate the idea of referring to documentation unless they are absolutely compelled to do so.”
(Niranjan Jahagirdar and Arun Joseph Martin ~ UXmatters.com)
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/10/using-personas-during-design-and-documentation.php
Zombie Personas
“This is by far the nerdiest episode we ever did, so fasten your seat belts. In his session at UXcamp, Tom said: “Personas – love ‘em or hate ‘em – you can’t not use ‘em. Either you have zombies, or you have living ones.” In this recording of his session he talks about different kinds of zombies like Mirror Personas, Undead Personas, Unicorn Personas or Stupid User Personas. He gives advice on how to avoid these fellas and how to make good use of living personas during a project. As a bonus, Tom explains why 37signals doesn’t need personas at all.”
(UX Café)
http://www.uxcafe.de/2010/06/zombie-personas/