{"id":524,"date":"2010-01-19T16:37:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T15:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=524"},"modified":"2019-11-06T17:45:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:45:03","slug":"how-to-make-an-effective-usability-persona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/19\/how-to-make-an-effective-usability-persona\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make an effective usability persona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Personae (or personas if you prefer) are an important part of a user centered design process, and one of the key ways in which usability experts can communicate their findings. I\u2019m going to look at how to make a persona, and what the advantages are to you, and the design team<\/p>\n<h4>How to make a Persona<\/h4>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019re going to assume you\u2019ve already take some steps towards understanding the users. You could have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/11\/7-aspects-of-successful-usability-questionnaires\/\">designed a survey<\/a>, or performed one on one interviews, and now you have a pretty good understanding of who your users are, and what they think about your product.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First we need to divide the people into demographics. Did all the women over 50 find your game idea too violent? Did most of the children think it sounded like it would get dull?\u00a0 Try to focus on the key areas where people picked up on things, and ignore the outliers for now \u2013 you want to turn all your results into 3-5 personae, of which only one or two will be the \u2018key\u2019 users you are designing for.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now you want to write about these groups you\u2019ve divided the people into. Make them real people; give them names, occupations and a back story. Make their name an in-joke, that&#8217;ll make you laugh, but no-one else will ever get (Hello Bibi Andersson). Include some text about how they\u2019d use the product, and what they\u2019d expect from it. Also include some concerns that they may have. You want these people to be treated as real people, and so they need to be complete! Include a picture, so that people can see the people they are designing for.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div id=\"attachment_530\" style=\"width: 340px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-530\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/cat-computer.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"cat-computer\" width=\"330\" height=\"238\" class=\"size-full wp-image-530\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/cat-computer.png 330w, https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/cat-computer-300x216.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 330px) 100vw, 330px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-530\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">pictures make everything more fun<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>Why you should be making personae<\/h4>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are many advantages to making usability and user experience personae. As a usability expert, it can help you by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Communicating your findings in a way that will be read (unlike that big <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/17\/how-to-present-a-ux-report\/\">50 page report<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Can be stuck on the wall, keeping your role in the team prominent<\/li>\n<li>Allowing you to make a definitive impact on the design of the product<\/li>\n<li>Incorporating usability and user experience principles from the start of the design process, promoting the use of your field as a holistic practice, rather than a \u2018last stage\u2019 of product development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div id=\"attachment_534\" style=\"width: 340px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-534\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/persona.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"persona\" width=\"330\" height=\"330\" class=\"size-full wp-image-534\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/persona.png 330w, https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/persona-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/persona-300x300.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 330px) 100vw, 330px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-534\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">not that sort of persona<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>Why they need you to make personae<\/h4>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You obviously don\u2019t just make personae for your own benefit. The design team benefits in many ways from your deliverable as well. Not only does it give them an easy way to understand your findings, and focuses on the aspects that are important in their roles, but it gives them a concrete person, or group of people, to design for.<\/p>\n<p>A persona gives an important baseline for future developments by the design team. By understanding who they are designing for, it reduces coder\u2019s natural urge to spend too long designing for the \u2018edge case\u2019 users, and focuses their attention on the core functionality required (perhaps an example of how to maximise with the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pareto_principle\">80\/20 rule<\/a> ). This reduces feature creep, as the team can consider whether the personae identified would actually use the new suggested features, and as such helps deliver games and projects on time, and to budget. I\u2019m guessing that 3D realms did not use personae.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Personae (or personas if you prefer) are an important part of a user centered design process, and one of the key ways in which usability experts can communicate their findings. I\u2019m going to look at how to make a persona, and what the advantages are to you, and the design team How to make a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-user-research","tag-design","grve-entry-item","grve-blog-item"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to make an effective usability persona - Steve Bromley - User Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/19\/how-to-make-an-effective-usability-persona\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to make an effective usability persona - Steve Bromley - User Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Personae (or personas if you prefer) are an important part of a user centered design process, and one of the key ways in which usability experts can communicate their findings. 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