Wow. You're good at organizing stuff through the wiki. As for the research method, surveys can help, but we can use more than that. FGDs would be helpful.
Let's discuss later on #gnome-design? :) On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Allan Day <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Allan, > > > Defining personas is very important for User-Centered Design. In fact, > > it should be one of the first activities needed to build a system with > > good UX, based on JJG's Elements of User Experience. We need to know > > who we're designing for before we design, right? > > > > > > There's an ongoing effort for this, but it's not gaining much > > traction. Fortunately, GNOME.Asia is interested in helping out by > > doing research in Asia. I hope you can help us do research in other > > areas. We also found this GNOME Marketing User Survey effort. We can > > build on this existing work if it's fit. > > > > > > Let's start by surveying GNOME users about their demographics, > > computing habits, what they use GNOME for, and how much they use > > GNOME. Would that do? If so, let's draft the questionnaire :) > > Thanks for taking this up! I'm sure that a set of personas would be > beneficial. Also, I like the idea of using research to inform the > creation of personas. Purely fictional accounts lack the complexity and > richness of those which incorporate research results. They are also far > less convincing. > > I see that this message has already had some responses. I'm afraid that > I don't have time to go through all that right now, but I do want to > give a few initial reactions. > > My view is that the usability project should focus on personas as a way > to inform GNOME UX design. (They could maybe even become a part of the > HIG.) Our first step should be to decide how to make a set of personas > that are effective in that context. Then we can decide whether we can > collaborate with marketing and what kinds of research strategies will be > most appropriate. > > That said, let me jump the gun a little and say that I'm unsure that a > survey is the best research approach here. In my understanding, the > purpose of this research would be to add richness and validity to our > personas. On the validity front, our aim should be to be able to claim > that 'people like this really exist and we want GNOME to be well-suited > to their needs'. This needn't require that our personas are statistical > representative of the GNOME target audience (something which is beyond > our practical abilities anyway). > > If we want to add richness to our personas, qualitative interviews or > even ethnography might be more appropriate. They are better suited to > producing statements like 'Mary is a busy mother. She really hates > computers and wishes she could spend her time eating cheese instead of > having to use one.' Interviews are more likely give you nice quotes to > use. Observations give you a better sense of the contexts in which > computers are used. > > But anyway, let's decide what work we want these personas to do and go > from there. I've moved the existing persona material to the GNOME wiki > [1]. It would be great to develop that page. > > Thanks again, > > Allan > > [1] http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject/Personas/ > > -- Regards, Allan http://www.google.com/profiles/allancaeg#about<http://www.google.com/profiles/AllanCaeg> +63 918 948 2520
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