Tamara Adlin

Putting personas to work

Personas for use in interaction and interface design have generated a great deal of interest, but the method is still relatively new. This panel brings together professionals who have used personas to solve real business problems. The panelists will describe the methods they have developed to put personas to work in their organizations and how the use of personas has impacted their products and their organizations.

Persona conception and gestation

This chapter discusses the persona conception and gestation. Conception and gestation is the phase of the persona lifecycle in which one actually creates their personas. It is the phase in which one use data to create engaging representations of individual users that their team can use for planning, design, and development. During this phase, one faces the tricky question of how many personas to create and how to prioritize them. One processes the data and assumptions one has collected (by prioritizing, filtering, and organizing) to discover information about your users. Using this information, one and their core team creates bulleted persona “skeletons” that key stakeholders can prioritize according to business goals. One develops their prioritized skeletons into complete personas that are then ready to be introduced to their organization in the birth and maturation phase Conception and gestation is the phase of the persona lifecycle in which one actually create their personas. It is the phase in which one use data to create engaging representations of individual users that their team can use for planning, design, and development.

Chapter 7 – Persona lifetime achievement, reuse, and retirement

This chapter discusses the persona lifetime achievement, reuse, and retirement. The lifetime achievement, reuse, and retirement phase is the least understood of all of the persona life stages, in part because the persona method is fairly young. The final persona lifecycle phase is about measurement, regaining control of the persona effort as a whole, and preparing for the future. The lifetime achievement, reuse, and retirement phase provides an excellent opportunity to touch base with ones core team members and with other stakeholders to talk about how things went. As one dive back into family planning one will want to predict the new issues one will encounter. This final lifecycle phase is a great time to have a postmortem to talk about what improved, stayed the same, or worsened during or due to ones persona effort.

Persona family planning

This chapter discusses the persona family planning. Family planning is the first phase in persona process. It is the time when one does some investigation and strategic thinking about their organization and its approach to user-centered design (UCD) and development. Ones personas is not introduced to the rest of their organization until the birth and maturation phase, but the ultimate success one has with them depends a lot on the work one has done during the family planning phase. It is critical that one use this time to think up front about what happens after the personas are created. The four major activities during the family planning phase are: building a core team, researching own organization, creating an action plan, and collecting data.

5 – PERSONA BIRTH AND MATURATION

This chapter discusses the persona birth and maturation. The birth and maturation phase is a period of strategic communication and determined execution of plans. It may not seem like it, but it is a time when one and their core team must redouble ones dedication and effort toward the persona method. During this phase, you analyzed your internal audience and created communication devices tuned to their needs, styles, and environment. One educates their broader team about user-centered design (UCD), the persona method, particular persona creation process, and resulting personas. One has planned a progressive disclosure of information about their personas, starting with the creation of “buzz”—a general awareness and excitement that something interesting is coming.

The five phases of the persona lifecycle

This chapter discusses the five phases of the persona lifecycle. The persona lifecycle is a metaphoric framework that breaks the persona process into phases similar to those of human procreation and development. The five phases in this framework bring structure to the potentially complicated process of persona creation and highlight critical aspects of persona use. The five phases of the persona lifecycle are: family planning, conception and gestation, birth and maturation, adulthood, and lifetime achievement and retirement. The persona lifecycle works for one whether or not one has already incorporated user-centered design (UCD) methods into their product development cycle. The persona lifecycle does not replace existing processes; rather, the phases of the lifecycle help to structure user-centered thinking throughout whatever design and development process one have in place.

What are personas

This chapter discusses persona. Personas are fictitious, specific, concrete representations of target users. Alan Cooper created the notion of personas. Personas put a face on the user—a memorable, engaging, and actionable image that serves as a design target. They convey information about users to their product team in ways that other artifacts cannot. The benefits of persona are it makes assumptions and knowledge about users explicit, creating a common language with which to talk about users meaningfully. It allows one to focus on and design for a small set of specific users (who are not necessarily like you), helping one make better decisions. It engenders interest and empathy toward users, engaging their team in a way that other representations of user data cannot.

Chapter 4 – Persona conception and gestation

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the persona conception and gestation. Conception and gestation is the phase of the persona lifecycle in which one actually creates their personas. It is the phase in which one use data to create engaging representations of individual users that their team can use for planning, design, and development. During this phase, one faces the tricky question of how many personas to create and how to prioritize them. One processes the data and assumptions one has collected (by prioritizing, filtering, and organizing) to discover information about your users. Using this information, one and their core team creates bulleted persona “skeletons” that key stakeholders can prioritize according to business goals. One develops their prioritized skeletons into complete personas that are then ready to be introduced to their organization in the birth and maturation phase Conception and gestation is the phase of the persona lifecycle in which one actually create their personas. It is the phase in which one use data to create engaging representations of individual users that their team can use for planning, design, and development.

Chapter 6 – Persona adulthood

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the persona adulthood. Adulthood is the phase of the persona lifecycle when one put their personas to use. To ensure that ones personas are used, one must provide their teammates with persona-related procedures, instructions, guidelines, templates, and tools they can easily weave in with their other tasks. Adulthood is one of the most exciting aspects of the persona lifecycle model. Until now, there have been very few documented methods for using personas beyond suggestions to include the personas in design discussions. Identifying and providing specific uses for ones personas go a long way toward making that happen. Hundreds of decisions are being made every day by your product team as they plan, build, and promote their product. One can make those decisions with their target customers in mind or without them. Much of the time, such decisions are made via implicit assumptions, known only to the single decision maker. Personas can help their product team be user centered. They can take part in those decisions to make the implicit become explicit. They can help move an entire team in a user-focused direction.