user profiles. personasuser profiles

USER PROFILESGrau en Enginyeria Informàtica

User Centred Design, course 2013-14

Introduction

• user profile • A detailed description of your users’ attributes (job title,

experience, level of education, key tasks, age range, etc.). • These characteristics will typically reflect a range, not a single

attribute (e.g., ages 18–35).• Your users should fall within those ranges. • A user profile will help you understand who you are building

your product for, and will help you when recruiting for future usability activities.

If you do not understand who your users (or potential users) are, your product is

doomed to failure.

User Profiles - User Centred Design (2013-14) 2 / 29

Introduction

• The first step in understanding your users is to create a user profile.

• Once you have developed a thorough user profile, you can develop

• personas (exemplars of your end user): are designed to help keep specific users in focus during design discussions

&

• scenarios (a day-in-the-life of your end user): help you test your system and to build functionality into your product that users will actually want to use.


Comparison of user profiles, personas, and scenarios

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Important

• NOT focus only on the “best” or “most experienced” users• Consider a range of users to ensure that the product will

work for 80% of potential population


How to create a User Profile

• Steps:1. Finding information to build your user profile

2. Understanding the types of users

3. Creating the user profile

• Vital to get the right users … • But who are your users? • What are their goals?

• For example, the typical users might be between 18 and 35 years of age, have job titles like “Travel Specialist,” “Travel Agent,” or “Travel Assistant,” and work for travel agencies with fewer than 50 employees.


Creating a user Profile, an ITERATIVE PROCESS

Understanding Your Users. A practical guide to user requirementsC. Courage & K. Baxter

Elsevier (2005)


How to create a User Profile. Step 1: Finding information to build your user profile

• Initial information to build your user profile can be obtained from:• Product managers• Functional specifications• Industry analysts• Marketing studies• Market analysts• Customer support• Competitive benchmarking and analysis• Census bureau• Surveys


How to create a User Profile. Step 2: Understanding the types of users

• All the users are ...

EQUAL ??

LIKE ME ??



• Define what you mean by “user.” • Most people consider the individuals who will interact

directly with the product as their users, but you may need to consider other individuals as well:

• The manager of your direct user• The system administrator who configures the product for

the direct user• People who receive artifacts or information from the

system• People deciding whether they will purchase your

software• People who use competitors’ products (and you want to

convert them to your users)

stakeholders



• Try to categorize your users into one of three categories: • Primary users are those individuals who work regularly or directly

with the product. • Secondary users will use the product infrequently or through an

intermediary.• Tertiary users are those who are affected by the system or the

purchasing decision-makers.

• This does not mean that you have to conduct user requirements activities with the secondary and tertiary users, but you should at least know who they are.


How to create a User Profile. Step 3: Creating the user profile

• Demographic characteristics. Age, gender, location, socio-economic status

• Occupation experience. Current job title, years at the company, years of experience at that position, responsibilities, previous jobs and job titles

• Company information. Company size, industry

• Education. Degree, major, courses taken

• Computer experience. Computer skills, years of experience

• Specific product experience. Experience with competitors’ products or other domain-specific products, usage trends

• Tasks. Primary tasks, secondary tasks

• Domain knowledge. The users’ understanding of the product area

• Technology available. Computer hardware (monitor size, computing speed, etc.), software, other tools typically used

• Attitudes and values. Product preferences, fear of technology, etc.

• Learning style. Visual learner, audio learner, etc.

• Criticality of errors. In general, the possible consequences of a user’s error.



• Example



• Once you determine the range of responses for each of the characteristics and the percentage of users along that range, you will want to categorize your users into groups based on their similarities.

• Some groupings you may use are:• Age (child, young adult, adult, older, etc.)• Experience (novice, expert)• Attitudes (first adopters, technophobe)• Primary task(s) (buyer, seller)


PERSONAS


Personas. The origin

• Ancient Greek: Persona = Mask

• In large open air theatres, classical masks

(personas) were able to bring a character’s face closer to the audience.

• In poetry and fiction, authors often create a 2nd-self thorow whom they tell the story• It presents a clear perspective of the events of the story


Personas

The Inmates are Running The Asylum

Alan Cooper (1999)

• First to use “personas” as a technique with the objective:• To avoid pitfalls• To give the development team a shared

understanding of the real users in terms of goals, capabilities and context.


Personas

• Personas are not real people, but they represent them throughout the design process.

• They are hypothetical archetypes of actual users.• Although they are imaginary, they are defined with

significant rigor and precision.

• A persona is simply a fictional individual created to describe a specific user.

• We cannot speak with every end user, then we create a model that can represent those end users.


Benefits of Personas

• Personas give your users life and help team members feel connected to them

• All team members think about the same persona • instead of each individual working towards his/her own vision of who

the end user is

• Without a specific target to focus on, “the user” can change from the expert to the novice to your grandmother, all in the midst of a single conversation

• A persona can be used in meetings as a discussion tool in cognitive walkthroughs, storyboarding, role-playing, and other usability activities• e.g., “Mary would never use that feature”

• Personas can also help new team members quickly learn who the end user is


To Be Aware of (when Creating Personas)

1. To develop multiple personas for each user type will help to cover the range of characteristics for each user type

• However, should keep the set of personas manageable. It is a balancing act.• If you have too many personas to represent one user type, they will

simply blur together in everyone’s mind and diminish their benefits.

• Three primary personas is a common recommendation

2. Not all users use all parts of a product or system• Therefore, it is unrealistic to assume that the same persona will

work for all parts of your product

3. Personas should never replace conducting usability activities with your end users


Creating a Persona

• Details will come from the information in your user profile. • When creating a persona, it should be fictional but

describe attributes from real users. • Provide details and maintain authenticity.

• Components, ideal list :• Identity• Status• Goals• Skill set• Tasks• Relationships• Requirements• Expectations• Photograph


• A user profile/persona should include:• Name• Occupation• Age• Gender• Education• Computing and Web experience• Personal Web behavior patterns (how do they use the Web in their personal time)• How they will use the site• Any additional site specific demographics (e.g. a Newspaper site might find lifestyle, location, race, etc. important)• Stock photo (putting a face to a name)

• Personas assist in decision making• It’s very helpful to be able to refer back to the personas when functionality and requirements questions come up. • Being able to say

• “Susan – our realtor, might have trouble if we implement it that way.” • Based on our profile we know that Susan has little Web experience and has trouble with searching for information.

• How many personas should be used?• There is no magic number. You want enough profiles to represent a wide range of users, but not so many that they

overcomplicate the development process. • Generally 2 – 4 profiles will do the trick. It is not necessary to create profiles for every distinct user group or scenario.

• User Profiles & Scenarios• User personas can be used in conjunction with user scenarios to offer a comprehensive picture of a sample user and their

interaction with the site. In some instances these documents are combined so that the persona offers the users bio and sample scenarios. This is a more advanced, but effective approach.

FONT: http://www.fatpurple.com/2010/02/26/web-user-profiles-user-personas

Creating a Persona


http://www.fatpurple.com/2010/02/26/web-user-profiles-user-personas



Creating a Persona

http://www.smartinsights.com/marketplace-analysis/customer-analysis/web-design-personas

RECOMENDED• http://www.uie.com/articles/benefits_of_personas• http://

www.webdesignfromscratch.com/goal-oriented-design/about-personas

• http://thinkvitamin.com/design/how-to-understand-your-users-with-personas





http://www.uie.com/articles/benefits_of_personas



http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/goal-oriented-design/about-personas



http://thinkvitamin.com/design/how-to-understand-your-users-with-personas



http://www.smartinsights.com/marketplace-analysis/customer-analysis/web-design-personas/

Personas. Examples.

http://www.user.com/downloads/Sample-persona-from-Interaction-Design.pdf

http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/personas_eg.html







Personas. Examples


http://taehok.com/night/?page_id=56


http://personas.dk/wp-content/LOWRES-Personas-english-version-oktober-200821.pdf






http://www.uxpassion.com/blog/strategy-concepts/what-is-roletailored-user-experience-in-nav-2009-part-1User Profiles - User Centred Design (2013-14) 29 / 29

http://www.uxpassion.com/blog/strategy-concepts/what-is-roletailored-user-experience-in-nav-2009-part-1



Other useful information

• http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/personas.html


PERSONA TEMPLATE:http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/uxd/assets/templates/user-persona-template.pdf

USER PROFILE TEMPLATE:http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/uxd/assets/templates/user-profile-template.pdf

http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/uxd/process.html

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/personas.html

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/personas.html

http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/uxd/assets/templates/user-persona-template.pdf

http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/uxd/assets/templates/user-profile-template.pdf

http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/applications/uxd/process.html