Why Personas?

Cooper (1999, p.123) defines personas as:
“A precise description of our user and what he wishes to accomplish.”
Calde, Goodwin & Reimann (2002) gives a slightly more detailed definition:
”User models, or personas, are fictional, detailed archetypical characters that represent distinct groupings"

For those who've either stumbled upon this page or been directed here via myself or another group member, you may be thinking "What's all this 'persona' stuff about?". References that provide comprehensive details of their origin and use can be found within the various resource links to the right of this page.

Basically, a persona is a model of a user that focuses on the individual’s goals when using a product/aretefact. The persona has a specific purpose in that it serves as a guide in the design process. It is an archetypal representation of real or potential users. The persona represents patterns of user behaviour, goals and motives, compiled in a fictional description of a single individual. It also contains fictional personal details, in order to make the persona appear more tangible and alive.

But why not use real people? It is not always practical or possible to consult with real users. However, the use of personas doesn't imply the elimination of real potential-users in the design process. Indeed, in our case personas will be utilised alongside real users.

The use of personas is therefore not a complete substitution for consulting with real users. Rather, it is a way of having a continuous presence of a set of users at our disposal,thereby providing a quick way of user-testing or brain-storming when access to real users could be problematic.

We have composed our personas so that they represent narratives that describe the flow of a typical day, as well as their skills, attitudes, environment, and goals. We have stated clear goals for what each person/persona wishes to achieve by using the product being designed.

Furthermore, we have:

• Restricted the number of personas required to a minimum, devising only those necessary to illustrate key goals and behavior patterns.


• Added life to the personas, but remembered that they are first-and-formeost design tools


• Restricted biographical detail by first focusing upon the workflow and behavior patterns, goals, environment, and attitudes of the personas (i.e. the information that is critical for design) — limited biographical detail was then added in order to provide the necessary personality


• Given each persona a few important goals that will help focus the design and reflect what the persona could gain from using a well-designed product


• Included experience goals for one persona, representing how the persona wants to feel when using a product (in this case, not feeling stupid or patronised). This represents people with considerable anxiety about technology.