Chapter 5: Modeling Users: Personas and Goals

More documents

Recommendations

Info

96 Part \: Understanding Goal·Directed Design Technical goals Most of the software-based products we use everyday are created with technical goals in mind. Many ofthese goals ease the task ofsoftware creation, which is a programmer's goal. This is why they typically take precedence at the expense of the users' goals. Technical goals include: .. Run in a variety of browsers .. Safeguard data integrity .. Increase program execution efficiency .. Use a particular development language or library .. Maintain consistency across platforms Technical goals in particular are very important to the development staff. It is important to stress early in the education process that these goals must ultimately serve user and business goals. Technical goals are not terribly meaningful to the success of a product unless they are derived from the need to meet other more human-oriented goals. It might be a software company's task to use new technology, but it is rarely a user's goal for them to do so. In most cases, users don't care if their job is accomplished with hierarchical databases, relational databases, objectoriented databases, flat-file systems, or black magic. What we care about is getting our job done swiftly, effectively, and with a modicum ofease and dignity. Successful products meet user goals first "Good design" has meaning only for a person using a product for some purpose. You cannot have purposes without people. The two are inseparable. This is why personas are such an important tool in the process ofdesigning behavior; they represent specific people with specific purposes or goals. The most important purposes or goals to consider when designing a product are those ofthe individuals who actually use it, not necessarily those of its purchaser. A real person, not a corporation or even an IT manager, interacts with your product, so you must regard her personal goals as more significant than those of the corporation who employs her or the IT manager who supports her. Your users will do their best to achieve their employer's business goals, while at the same time looking after their own personal goals. A user's most important goal is always to retain her human dignity: not to feel stupid. We can reliably say that we make the user feel stupid if we let her make big mistakes, keep her from getting an adequate amount of work done, or bore her. DESIGN" princiPIeJ, This is prol this book, , feel stupid, The essenCi goals of the the goals of Canst As previousl views with: tomers) ofa provided by a set of pers, attitudes, apt trations with Creating beli analysis and, significantly. Kim Goodwil ~ver the span ~n several pap lOr patterns iJ found the tral new to person designers to . omains. The Identif 2. Map ir 3. Identin 4 Synthe s. Check'
Chapter 5: Modeling Users: Personas and Goals 97 DESIGN~ Don't make the user feel stupid. !rinCiPI~ This is probably the most important interaction design guideline. In the COurse of this book, we examine numerous ways in which existing software makes the user feel stupid, and we explore ways to avoid that trap. The essence of good interaction design is devising interactions that achieve the goals ofthe manufacturer or service provider and their partners without violating the goals of users. Constructing Personas As previously discussed, personas are derived from patterns observed during interviews with and observations of users and potential users (and sometimes customers) ofa product. Gaps in this data are filled by supplemental research and data provided by SMEs, stakeholders, and available literature. Our goal in constructing a set of personas is to represent the diversity of observed motivations, behaviors, attitudes, aptitudes, mental models, work or activity flows, environments, and frustrations with current products or systems. Creating believable and useful personas requires an equal measure of detailed analysis and creative synthesis. A standardized process aids both of these activities iignificantly. The process described in this section, developed by Robert Reimann, Kim Goodwin, and Lane Halley at Cooper, is the result of an evolution in practice over the span ofhundreds ofinteraction design projects, and has been documented II several papers. 11 There are a number ofeffective methods for identifying behavpatterns in research and turning these into useful user archetypes, but we've nd the transparency and rigor of this process to be an ideal way for designers to personas to learn how to properly construct personas, and for experienced 'gners to stay focused on actual behavior patterns, especially in consumer ins. The principle steps are: Identify behavioral variables. Map interview subjects to behavioral variables. Identify significant behavior patterns. Synthesize characteristics and relevant goals. Check for redundancy and completeness.
Page 1 and 2: Modeling Users: Personas and Goals
Page 3 and 4: Personas Chapter 5: Modeling Users;
Page 5 and 6: • The elastic user We discuss eac
Page 7 and 8: Chapter 5: Modeling Users: Personas
Page 11 and 12: We find these methods limiting for
Page 21: Customer goals t Chapter 5: Modelin
Page 25 and 26: Step 2: Map interview subjects to b
Page 27 and 28: Chapter 5: Modeling Users; Personas
Page 29 and 30: Chapter 5: Modeling Users; Personas
Page 33 and 34: .. Information that is used to supp

Chapter 5: Modeling Users: Personas and Goals

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?