> Yet, we've found many teams, like Robert, believe personas *are* > just a report format. Teams that believe this, in our research, > rarely succeed at designing great experiences for their users.
Quick clarification here on my position: the persona *artifact* is a report format. The persona *process* is where the real value lies because it generates useful information. These two are often conflated. People sometimes get excited to try personas, then wonder why nothing good comes of the artifact they produce. Typically it's because they're focused more on the artifact than on the *information* it needs to contain. So you end up with a shallow or overly-cute description of the annoying "soccer mom" who makes $60K/year and drives an old Volvo -- and who cares, because that's just not helpful. IMHO, the persona *artifact* is valuable mainly for these reasons: - it reminds designers of what they know about the product users - it's an engaging format to help spread information across a wider team - it helps to surface different beliefs that people might hold about the product users -- Robert Barlow-Busch http://www.chopsticker.com ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
