Why not take the bait? The difference is that there are some situations in which personas in general are not feasible or realistic, but a time/resource drain on a project, and thus are not useful. So even if you had a well crafted persona, it's not adding any value and might actually hurt the project.
Also - unless there is a large design team which is separate from research staff, personas might not provide any extra value to those doing research + design. Chances are they'll acquire any knowledge from ethnography that a persona might provide and don't need the "report format" of a persona to refer to during design. I'm sure I'm completely wrong on some semantic level of course :-) But, this has been my experience and judging by various comments on the thread I'm not the only one. What are your thoughts Alan? Jeff On Nov 26, 2007 8:27 PM, Alan Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What's the difference? > > __________ > cooper | Product Design for a Digital World > Alan Cooper > [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.cooper.com > All information in this message is proprietary & confidential. > "There is no country with a military so powerful, an economy so strong, > and a culture so great that its politicians cannot pull it down." - > Donald Gilbert Carpenter > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim > Drew > Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 9:44 PM > To: ixd-discussion > > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Examples where personas are *not* useful > > > On Nov 13, 2007, at 1:24 PM, Alan Cooper wrote: > > > The place where personas would not be useful is where the persona is > > elaborate camouflage for a designer creating self-referential > > solutions. > > In other words, personas help designers design for users. When > > personas > > are used to help designers design for themselves instead, that would > > be bad. > > That's where poorly created personas aren't useful, not where personas > in general aren't useful, no? > > -- Jim Drew > Seattle, WA > > > ________________________________________________________________ > *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 > ________________________________________________________________ > *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 > ________________________________________________________________ *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
