Personas and how to improve the quality of business solutions

Editor's Notes

2. My impression of life before Personas! Really came into use after Cooper's \"Inmates are Running the Asylum\" in 1999 Software must have been pretty bad before that! Now coming more and more into widespread use Still fear at cost and time to create BUT, that cost and time has far more benefits than just the Persona!
3. Not going into too much detail Persona is a representation of our target user. Persona should capture: Very brief biographical information Habits Skill levels Environmental Factors (e.g. uses computer at work only, at home with baby) Tasks - a.k.a Work or activity flows (important ones from here) Frustrations GOALS Personas are not just for UX, so they need to be concise and accessible. Uses throughout the requirements, design, development and delivery phases of a solution
4. Can be looked upon with suspicion in the business community Too emotional - not enough logic! Empathy allows us to identify with the needs of our users Empathy allows us to get to know who we are developing a solution for It brings us close to our users and understand their goals Empathy helps us to build usable and accessible solutions That is empathy with our end users, but we also need to have empathy with our clients Personas allows us to understand the needs of the end user and the client
5. Understanding the needs of our end users important and generally accepted It is equally important for us to understand the needs and motivation of the client This allows us to to speak to them in a language they understand Speak to them with authority about their business and needs Gives them confidence that we understand their business needs and what they want from the solution It builds trust Important to be embedded in with a client Understanding, and its role in Personas, allows us to interact more efficiently with our clients.
6. Good usability is what we all strive for By empathising and understand we put ourselves in the shoes of the user and take the first steps towards a solution that is usable Usability is good for business! Jared Spool and the $300million button Removing the registration at the beginning of the checkout process Purchases went up by 45% Lower barrier to entry Emotional bias to give details at end of process A usable solution is likely to be a successful solution - Personas are an integral part of getting the usability right and getting the solution right.[ PAUSE - NEW THEME ]
7. Lots of different methods to build a Persona Quantitative - all about numbers and data Surveys Web Analytics Qualitative - all about the individuals User Interviews Contextual Enquiry Focus Groups Diary Studies These methods allow us to understand the user, but also: the problem space opportunities for growth identify competitors look at more general user trends The research that we do for Personas should not just be used for the Persona creation - it also can be very valuable business information.
8. Personas play an integral part when it comes to designing the solution We know know who we are designing for and why They allow us to make the right design decision They keep the “You out of User” Designing the right thing instead of the cool thing Personas and understanding the users’ goals allow us to make better design decisions
9. Understanding the goals of our users mean that we build the most appropriate solution Allow us to validate if that’s what the user really wants and needs, rather than what someone else (like the client) thinks they need I was working on a rebuild of a CRM / claim system about 7/8 years ago Old mainframe system - Users on green screen terminals Moving to a web based solution Client wanted pretty, branded solution User Interviews/Contextual enquiry revealed driver for users Process as many claims as possible - quick and responsive Also a need for the business - quick claim processing End solution was not pretty or branded, but met the users needs and the clients needs!
10. Good to have a stakeholder persona Ensure that the business needs are met Allows us to understand the business Also ensures that any backend systems are easy to use Personas are not just about the end user, about the stakeholder and the business in general too
11. Personas play an important part in the development stage too Especially in an Agile environment RITE: Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation By knowing who are users are we can quickly find people that match out Persona to test Agile is all about user stories, and our Personas represent our users[ PAUSE - NEW THEME ]
12. I think it’s important to always ask who are are building this solution for and why During the development phase, which user are we referring to in this user story What’s the benefit to the user and to the business of doing this piece of work Personas should be everywhere, at all meetings and especially at iteration planning meetings. How? Posters Cardboard Cut Outs Mood Boards Top Trump Cards Personas ensure that we focus on building the right thing for the right people
13. Personas can be really useful during brainstorming meetings Using the presentation techniques I mentioned But also Role Playing When trying to come up with a solution, someone plays the Persona and answers questions as the Persona Good way to make sure we focus on the user and building the right thing.
14. Give one of your Personas a disability - even a minor one Keeps accessibility in the forefront Also ties in to Progressive Enhancement and an agile process (build and iterate) Good accessibility helps with SEO Personas bring value at every stage of the process.[ PAUSE - NEW THEME ]
15. Personas allow us to determine the effectiveness of our approach and design of a solution Allow us to do it early in the development phase Important for us Also important for the client And for use to prove that we’re doing the right thing to the client
16. Test Early and Test Often! Guerilla Testing Works well with Agile Low cost and high value Quick (5 people is enough) Personas allow us to identify the right people to use to test
17. By conducting regular testing we catch issues early and address them quickly No snowballing and trying to patch things at a late stage This also helps to underpin the Agile way of iterating over things (which is often overlooked!)
18. Personas play a really powerful role in communication Both externally with clients And internally within the project team
19. Humans are storytellers and storylisteners. We are more receptive to a story Personas tell a story, or at least allow us to By telling a story, based on a Persona, we can more easily communicate our ideas and sell our vision
20. This helps us to build consensus By telling a story around a design or feature we make it easier to get consensus “Joe gets home from work and like to catch up on the news. He doesn’t have much time before he goes back out to meet his friends...” By couching an approach like this we are not imposing our opinion, it’s the best way for the user. You encounter 3 types of people that you need to convince, and Personas can really help with each one. The CEO: All about the vision and the big idea, generally Sales minded Best persuaded using an anecdote - a story The CFO: Not interested in a story, or really the bottom number - Wants to know the process, the formula used to reach a decision The research and methodology that we use to build Personas and gather requirements is invaluable here The Developer: Wants hard facts and logic - Our Quantitative data helps here As does the Qualitative and A/B testing... 4 out of 5 users we tested said they preferred this way
21. Because we are not presenting “our idea”, which may not agree with the clients idea, but the best way to please the user We can build consensus But this also helps us with getting commitment The Neutral person Client doesn’t feel that we didn’t listen to them and instead pushed our idea - it was all about the user Less chance of hitting a “I’d like to revisit my idea...” moment Again, Personas “Keep the You out of User”
22. So, Personas are not just an instrument that we use at the beginning of the solution building process They are something that we can use to great effect from the start of the finish They help us to DETERMINE what it is the solution should be, by giving us empathy and understanding. They help us to COMMUNICATE our vision of the solution and help us to build consensus and commitment They allow us to MEASURE our ideas and the effectiveness of our designs And they can CONTRIBUTE to the work of different groups, be it development, marketing and sales All this end to end value by providing us with an insight into our users.
23. Thanks for listening. I’m happy to share this presentation and my notes with anyone who would like a copy. Would anyone like to ask a question or kick off a discussion on a point you agreed or disagreed with?