Lene Nielsen

Personas - User Focused Design

People relate to other people, not to simplified types or segments. This is the concept that underpins this book. Personas, a user centered design methodology covers topics from interaction design within IT, through to issues surrounding product design, communication, and marketing. Project developers need to understand how users approach their products from the products infancy, and regardless of what the product might be. Developers should be able to describe the user of the product via vivid depictions, as if they with their different attitudes, desires and habits were already using the product. In doing so they can more clearly formulate how to turn the products potential into reality. With contributions from professionals from Australia, Brazil, Finland, Japan, Russia, and the UK presenting real-world examples of persona method, this book will provide readers with valuable insights into this exciting research area. The inspiration to create user descriptions includes character-driven narratives, and the film Thelma & Louise is analyzed in order to understand how the development process can also be an engaging story in various professional contexts. With a solid foundation in her own research at the IT University of Copenhagen and more than five years of experience in solving problems for businesses, Lene Nielsen is Denmarks leading expert in the persona method. She has a PhD in personas and scenarios, and through her research and practical experiences she has developed her own approach to the method 10 Steps to Personas. Personas User Focused Design presents a set-by-step methodology of personas which will be of interest to developers of IT, communications solutions and innovative products.

Salivary changes and dental erosion in bulimia nervosa.

OBJECTIVE Our aim was to study if bulimia nervosa (BN) has an impact on salivary gland function and if such changes are related to dental erosion. STUDY DESIGN Twenty women with BN and twenty age- and gender-matched controls participated. Flow rate and composition of whole and glandular saliva, as well as feeling of oral dryness were measured. Dental erosion was measured on casts. RESULTS Compared with control subjects, unstimulated whole saliva (UWS) flow rate was reduced in persons with BN, primarily owing to intake of medication (P = .007). No major compositional salivary changes were found. In the BN group, the dental erosion score was highest and complaints of oral dryness were more frequent. CONCLUSIONS The BN persons had impaired UWS, mainly owing to medication; increased feeling of oral dryness; and more dental erosion. Dental erosion was related to the duration of eating disorder, whereas no effect of vomiting frequency or intake of acidic drinks on reduced UWS was observed.

Personas is applicable: a study on the use of personas in Denmark

The persona method is gaining widespread use and support. Many researchers have reported from single cases and novel domains how they have used the method. Few have conducted literature studies in order to identify and discuss the different understandings of the method. Fewer still have reported on ethnographic studies of practice. This paper falls within the last category, reporting on a study on how practitioners in Denmark use the method, and their perceptions of benefits and challenges when using the method. Finally, different casts of personas obtained from the involved companies are analyzed. The findings are compared to reported studies of practice. Contrary to the existing findings the study reports that the method is well integrated into existing practices.

Persona Generation from Aggregated Social Media Data

We develop a methodology for persona generation using real time social media data for the distribution of products via online platforms. From a large social media account containing more than 30 million interactions from users from 181 countries engaging with more than 4,200 digital products produced by a global media corporation, we demonstrate that our methodology can first identify both distinct and impactful user segments and then create persona descriptions by automatically adding pertinent features, such as names, photos, and personal attributes. We validate our approach by implementing the methodology into an actual working system that leverages large scale online user data for generation of persona descriptions. We present the overall methodological approach, data analysis process, and system development. Findings show this method can develop believable personas representing real groups of people using real-time online user data. Results have implications for those distributing products via online platforms.

Going global with personas

The persona method is widely used and commonly described both in scientific literature and in case-based blogs. Most often the descriptions point to a local context with local user groups and it is difficult to find writings on use of the method in an international context and in globally distributed teams. This paper reports from a qualitative study conducted in 2012/13 within 13 Danish companies and points to how design teams apply several different strategies when end-users are distributed worldwide. Moreover it shows how the designers value the strength of the method to provide common grounds for the team, especially for team distributed across countries.

Non‐invasive Archaeology of Skeletal Material by CT Scanning and Three‐dimensional Reconstruction

The remains of an ancient Sumerian skeleton, approximately 7000 years old, were investigated using the techniques of stereolithography. The very fragile and delicate skeletal material was recovered in a block, thus retaining it in the soil matrix. The excavated block was CT-scanned and the skeletal material was rendered in three dimensions. This formed the basis for a stereolithographic model of the mandible, which was used for physical and dental anthropological studies. Skeletal remains may thus be made available for research without having to remove them from the local matrix, which may be an advantage in an archaeological or palaeoanthropological setting.

A Template for Design Personas: Analysis of 47 Persona Descriptions from Danish Industries and Organizations

The persona method is gaining widespread use and support. Many researchers have reported from single cases and from novel domains on how they have used the method. However, the way companies and design groups describe personas has not been the focus of attention. This paper analyses 47 descriptions from 13 companies and compares these to an analysis of recommendations from 11 templates from literature. Furthermore, 28 interviews with Danish practitioners with experience in using personas are analyzed for content on persona descriptions. The study finds that a Danish persona style has developed that is different from the recommendations in the lack of marketing and business related information and the absence of goals as differentiator for personas. Furthermore, the inspiration and knowledge on personas originates from co-workers and seminars and not much from literature. This indicates that the community of practice influences the persona style.

Personas in a More User-Focused World

International studies have shown that there are a number of areas that affect the success of the method (Browne 2011). Some companies do not want to use the method because they think that their segmentation tools can achieve the same result. In other companies, the data that creates the foundation of the persona descriptions is inadequate for any sensible use. Furthermore, the quality of the descriptions may be poorly executed so that the personas are seen as unreliable. Finally, some companies dive into developing personas without having thought about what they are to achieve. But what is the status of using the method in the world?

UX in Agile before and during development.

Agile project management processes (Agile) such as Scrum, DSDM, XP and Kanban, have become a de facto standard for software development practice. The context of Agile strongly affects the possibilities of IT professionals to conduct UX activities in their software development. In this workshop we aim to address successes, challenges and best practices from integrating UX activities in Agile. Particularly, we want to focus on two periods for the integration: Before the actual agile project management starts and during the agile projects. The overall objective of this workshop is to provide a venue for researchers and practitioners, from within and outside of HCI, to discuss and suggest good ways of integrating UX in Agile. The workshop has two goals: (1) Identifying best practices, case studies and work-in-progress relevant to successes and challenges of integrating UX activities in Agile. (2) Identify and discuss suggestions for good ways of integrating UX activities in Agile.

Fixation and Confusion: Investigating Eye-tracking Participants' Exposure to Information in Personas

To more effectively convey relevant information to end users of persona profiles, we conducted a user study consisting of 29 participants engaging with three persona layout treatments. We were interested in confusion engendered by the treatments on the participants, and conducted a within-subjects study in the actual work environment, using eye-tracking and talk-aloud data collection. We coded the verbal data into classes of informativeness and confusion and correlated it with fixations and durations on the Areas of Interests recorded by the eye-tracking device. We used various analysis techniques, including Mann-Whitney, regression, and Levenshtein distance, to investigate how confused users differed from non-confused users, what information of the personas caused confusion, and what were the predictors of confusion of end users of personas. We consolidate our various findings into a confusion ratio measure, which highlights in a succinct manner the most confusing elements of the personas. Findings show that inconsistencies among the informational elements of the persona generate the most confusion, especially with the elements of images and social media quotes. The research has implications for the design of personas and related information products, such as user profiling and customer segmentation.