The myths about the efficacy or not of archtypes in design and design
research tend to be promulgated by those that 1. Can't do them; 2.
Have never done real design or ethnographic research; 3. To justify
the tried and true fact that while most companies and clients say they
want to do (insert silly acronym for process meant to sell services by
people needing to fill a blog post or justify their fees); the truth
is that design research is valuable, and costly. Real practitioners
rely on real people research to inform design and those that can't or
won't then write about how ineffective it is having never done it or
validating the business decision not to do it because of cost. I
heartily disagree with folks that think personas and archtype creation
is just interviews & usability tests. It's also quantitative based in
usage statistics, surveys, as well as psychographic, technographic and
demographic. The analysis is more science, the narrative to fillout
the archtype is art. If no other value exist, and many do- it is that
when you make controversial design decisions that contradict the whims
and pet assumptions of stakeholders, you have something to back up
your argument. When it comes to prioritizing features and initiatives
- you have something to inform cost benefit of every keep/drop
decision. In the end - designing is just as much about power and
politics and with user research you are negotiating your design from a
position of weakness and it's better to have more than emty rhetoric,
lack of data and ignorance of users when you enter that battle with
stakeholders- and it is a battle, make no mistake. You may be given
some degree of a honeymoon sometimes where people buys your designs
without challenge but eventually those halcyon days will end and when
they do, better have done the researg so you don't look like a horses
ass. :-)
Cheers!
will evans
emotive architect &
hedonic designer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
617.281.1281
twitter: semanticwill
aim: semanticwill
gtalk: wkevans4
skype: semanticwill
_________________________
Sent via iPhone
On Nov 16, 2008, at 8:50 AM, "Michael Stiso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Hi, all. I was inspired to post this question by the very interesting
ACD/UCD discussion, during which the personas concept has frequently
been
mentioned. I've always been a little uncertain of personas, but many
people
seem to love them, and so I'm wondering if I'm missing or
misunderstanding
something.
Below are my three main problems with the concept. I'm hoping some
of you
might be able to tell me whether (and how) I'm on- or off-base with
them.
1) *Frankenstein.* As I understand it, the better persona
practitioners will
base their constructions on real-world data. Essentially, they use
various
methods to gather a bunch of data on behaviors, attitudes, and
demographics
from some population, and then reorganize and combine the various data
points into some mock person. If that is correct, then it would seem
that
the resulting persona doesn't represent any actual user -- it's just
made up
of parts of real users, like a Frankenstein's monster. As James
Page<http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=35466#35613>said in a
comment on the ACD/UCD thread, the result is a fiction.
2) *Efficiency.* If personas are made up of pieces of real users, I'm
uncertain about how much benefit is gained from from recombining those
pieces into a narrative that makes sense, as opposed to simply
looking at
the dataset and any potential relationships within it. For example,
in his
original post in the last ACD/UCD thread, Jared Spool describes the
following:
"Recently, I had a client show me their persona descriptions that
talked
about the car the family had and the family dog. My first
inclination was to
suggest they take this information out. However, their project was a
home-improvement information site and providing filters for pet-
friendly
improvement projects and easy-to-bring-home materials was an obvious
no-brainer out of this simple info."
Unless the persona creators got lucky, the car and pet details in
their
creations came from some actual data -- a demographics survey, focus
groups,
user interviews, or whatever. If so, I wonder whether the effort of
creating
those fictional representations of home-improvement customers could
have
been saved by just looking at the simple data on which they were
based. Put
another way, was it the persona that helped, or was it the simple
finding
that some of their customers drive small cars and own pets?
3) *Variability.* Persona creation, and the conclusions that come
from them,
seem to be more of an art than a science. (Ultimately, design is an
art, but
the recommendations on which those designs are based should perhaps
fall
more in the science realm.) My impression (and that's all it is) is
that the
process of imagining a persona turns datasets into inkblots, with
different
practitioners looking at the same thing and coming up with different
interpretations. If so, that makes me question the utility of the
concept.
Going back to the ACD/UCD discussion, I wonder if there would be less
variability in design recommendations if they were based on analyses
of the
central activities/tasks that users must perform, along with real data
showing associations between user characteristics and those
activities.
That's just speculation, but if there's any truth in it, then the
costs and
benefits of personas as a design tool may be an interesting
investigation.
Thanks for your time if you've read all of this. I'm hoping it will
generate
a good discussion on the topic and give me some insight into the
issue.
Mike
-------
Michael Stiso, Ph.D.
HCI Researcher
SINTEF ICT
Oslo, Norway
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