Key quotation and bio of 'The Newbie' archetype using a FigJam template
Meet Alice, the primary persona for my first design sprint challenge product, INKnowledge.
A User Persona is an amalgamation of field research that presents user characteristics and goals. Personas are presented in an easily digestible format with images and quotations to help the design team understand the aims of their users (Chang et al. 2008).
As the design team creates personas, it can be easy to lean on them as the only truth when making design decisions. This means that when a small number of personas are the focus, users’ true, varied nature is not considered, resulting in a product that doesn’t meet the user’s needs (Weinschenk 2011). This problem is further compounded if the personas are biased, too abstract or misleading (Matthews et al. 2012).
However, if we remember that personas are simply a tool to communicate data empathetically, then using them will enhance design team output. A collection of well-formed, data-driven user personas can be the artefacts that align a development team with specific user problems (Matthews et al. 2012).
The main goals and pain points of ' The Newbie' archetype using a FigJam template
Despite these issues, they are great tools for adding depth to your product development. I was already developing my product based on ‘newbie’ questions posted to discussion forums, but creating a persona helped cement that information better. Creating a user persona would have been helpful before designing and building INKnowledge, but I can see where it could have helped me by making it afterwards. Starting with the persona would have felt annoying, though, as I was chomping at the bit to get down and design something. I appreciate the module was structured ‘backwards’ to allow me to make those mistakes and see the benefits of personas for myself.
The rapid ideation sessions feel like they happened so long ago now that my persona feels disassociated from the product itself. I would love to learn more about the psychology behind personas and how understanding human nature can create more accurate artefacts and better designs.
If I were to continue developing INKnowledge, I would create 3 or 4 additional personas. I would return to those personas regularly throughout product development to assess if they need to be updated, per research from Salazar (2016). I would also exclude demographic information, explore detailed information regarding user motivations and attitudes based on research data (Bowmann 2021), and develop persona scenarios (Spool 2018). I will develop a deeper understanding of the user by taking these steps to improve my future personas. “Empathy extends to knowing what the person wants to accomplish regardless of whether she has or is aware of the thing you are designing. You need to know the person’s goals and what procedure and philosophy she follows to accomplish them” (Young 2011: 74).
To complete my persona of Alice Moser I used a photograph (Guerra n.d.), and a collection of inspiration images; outline of a chin resting on a hand (Gajewska 2023a); outline of half a face (Leone 2020); outline of a chin resting on a hand with clouds for eyes (Gajewska 2023b); Medusa head outline (Haynie 2023); outline of three faces together (cra_tattooer 2023).
References
BOWMANN, Jordan. 2021. ‘Fixing User Personas – What’s the Problem with Them?’ Prototypr [online]. Available at: https://learnuxd.io/posts/fixing-user-personas/ [accessed 9 Apr 2023].
CHANG, Yen-ning, Youn-kyung LIM and Erik STOLTERMAN. 2008. ‘Personas: From Theory to Practices’. In Proceedings of the 5th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Building Bridges. 439–42. Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1463160.1463214 [accessed 9 Apr 2023].
MATTHEWS, Tara, Tejinder JUDGE and Steve WHITTAKER. 2012. ‘How Do Designers and User Experience Professionals Actually Perceive and Use Personas?’ In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1219–28. Available at: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2207676.2208573 [accessed 9 Apr 2023].
SALAZAR, Kim. 2016. ‘Are Your Personas Outdated? Know When It’s Right To Revise’. Nielsen Norman Group [online]. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/revising-personas/ [accessed 9 Apr 2023].
SPOOL, Jared M. 2018. ‘When It Comes To Personas, The Real Value Is In The Scenarios’ [Medium]. UI Conference [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/user-interface-22/when-it-comes-to-personas-the-real-value-is-in-the-scenarios-4405722dd55c [accessed 9 Apr 2023].
WEINSCHENK, Susan. 2011. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People. Berkeley, California: New Riders Press.
YOUNG, Indi. 2011. Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behaviour. Rosenfeld Media. Available at: https://www.vlebooks.com/Product/Index/1597708?page=0 [accessed 9 Apr 2023].
List of Figures
CRA_TATTOOER. 2023. It’s a flash design about fine line drawing. [Illustration]. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqPrH1EOxOV/ [accessed 8 Apr 2023].
GAJEWSKA, Dominika. 2023a. singlelinetattoo [Tattoo]. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp-GYYwIIaC/ [accessed 8 Apr 2023].
GAJEWSKA, Dominika. 2023b. minimalistyczny tatuaż [Tattoo]. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cqn5V2fouz0/ [accessed 8 Apr 2023].
GUERRA, Anderson. n.d. Lächelnde Frau Mit Ohrringen Und Schwarzem Kragenoberteil. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/lachelnde-frau-mit-ohrringen-und-schwarzem-kragenoberteil-1197132/ [accessed 8 Apr 2023].
HAYNIE, Timothy. 2023. “The best way to know your inner peace is the way you react to those who disturb you” -MEDUSA [Tattoo]. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqWq0X_tUfQ/ [accessed 8 Apr 2023].
LEONE, Antonio. 2020. Beautiful Tango [Tattoo]. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_AbG63IFwV/ [accessed 8 Apr 2023].
German vocabulary of the week
Empathy – Mitgefühl