[IxDA Discuss] Personas Personas Personas

[Robert Barlow-Busch]

>> Personally, I find "personae" so uninteresting. I think they are  
>> useful,
>> but they are so unexciting.


Agreed. And I'm even a vocal advocate of personas. But...

Personas themselves are simply a deliverable, an output. Discussions  
on "personas" tend to conflate two different topics: (a) the research  
and learnings with (b) the deliverable. It's the research and  
learning that's exciting.

If you're simply creating the deliverable -- perhaps as an experiment  
in what has obviously been a popular fad in the past year -- then  
you're missing the boat and will probably have a bad experience, as  
Todd described in an earlier post. Personas are REALLY about the  
insights/information they contain.

In response to Robert H's idea to focus on the activity instead of  
the user... well, I agree with Robert R's perspective that you need  
to understand the activity in context of the actor (and vice versa).  
Here's an example from the chapter I contributed to "The Persona  
Lifecycle" -- just to tie into another thread in this discussion <grin>:

In designing a scientific instrument, our field research uncovered an  
insight into the scientists who would use this product. One  
scientist, illustrated through a persona named "Tracy", thinks of  
herself as a detective who's sifting carefully through rich data,  
looking for a moment of "eureka". Another scientist, captured in a  
persona named "Marcus", was a slave to his to-do list; he simply  
could not, or would not, take the time needed to be as detailed as  
Tracy.

This insight had a huge impact on the design of the product's UI. And  
it's an insight that's not inherent in the *activity* itself. We'd  
have missed it without going the route of personas. And by personas,  
I'm including the process of research and learning -- the personas  
themselves were merely a way to share the exciting insights we'd  
uncovered.

-- 
Robert Barlow-Busch
Practice Director, Interaction Design
Quarry Integrated Communications Inc.
rbarlowbusch at quarry.com
(519) 570-2020

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