[IxDA Discuss] A question about Personas

[Douglas Brashear]

Todd sez: "Howso?"

 

Well, why create and maintain documents merely recording the information
that could be obtained, at strategic points, "straight from the horse's
mouth"? Perhaps heavily documented process is what you have to do based
on your clients (we've all been there). Just seems like a waste. 

 

Unless, of course, those documents are taken further, eventually
becoming detached from the users because not *every* piece of
information they contain comes directly from not just one user, but a
significant sampling of the target audience the persona represents. In
that case, we get back to my initial comment about personas. 

 

I find that a less contrived representation of target audience
intelligence works well for my clients. I say "less contrived" because
of the inappropriate expectations that personas sometimes cause for
those not used to working with them. After meeting user group
representatives I first categorize by audience type or role, next by the
most appropriate subcategorization and so on until all major segments of
the audience in question have been identified. 

 

I'm not sure how long your projects last, but I generally have 2 - 3
months or so to drop the hammer on a project. That includes requirements
and audience identification, high ROI user research (depends on the
project), first conceptualization for stakeholder buy-in, interaction
flows/site maps and mid-double digit wireframes (to whatever scale or
level of detail required). It sure would be nice to have the time to
decorate standies, but my clients would likely have an issue with me
using their cash for the task. The whole time we're working
collaboratively with not only the users, but also the stakeholders and
the project team itself. 

 

When it all comes down to it, I've never seen a project that could have
justified the additional time and expense (over the target audience
analysis I already perform) for the personas I see coming from some
agencies/consultants, and really question what additional value, if any,
doing such would have yielded. YMMV. 

 

BTW, what's the charge number for this thread?

 

- Doug :-)

 

_________________________

Doug Brashear

Senior Information Architect

NavigationArts, LLC

703.584.8933 (office)

703.725.8031 (mobile)

dbrashear at navigationarts.com

________________________________

From: Todd Zaki Warfel [mailto:lists at toddwarfel.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 1:29 PM
To: Douglas Brashear
Cc: discuss at ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] A question about Personas

 

 

On Aug 21, 2007, at 1:24 PM, Douglas Brashear wrote:





"If they're becoming detached, you're not doing them correctly." Well,
I'll just leave that one alone.

 

Because?

 

	

	If multiple people are consulted for your personas, and the
personas mature over time like the people, and therefore the personas
always contain the same information that could be obtained directly from
your audience representatives, then congratulations, you just wasted the
amount of time and client money it took to create the personas.

 

Howso?

 

 


Cheers!

 

Todd Zaki Warfel

President, Design Researcher

Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully.

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Email:      todd at messagefirst.com

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