Persona iteration
As part of my MA in User Experience Design, I completed a module called UX Design.
This blog post was originally published as part of the reflective piece I wrote throughout that module.
In the previous blog post, I wrote about my process of synthesising user research data and then using it to create a user profile. It was a useful starting point but it didn’t include information that a user profile usually would, such as goals and concerns (Harley 2015). This was because the first iteration of the persona was informed only by the user research data I had collected so far (Cooper et al. 2014) and I didn’t have enough information about the goals and concerns of potential users.
Jackie I
I still don’t have as much information as I would ideally like but I do want to develop the persona further and create a second iteration. This second iteration will be:
Part persona, informed by real user research data
Part proto-persona, based on my own assumptions
(Laubheimer 2020)
The benefit of doing this is that it allows me to fill in the gaps quickly and produce a persona that feels more fully-formed. The assumptions “can also be a gateway to future research if the team considers them to be hypotheses” (Laubheimer 2020) to validate or revise as the persona is iterated upon further. The main drawback of anything which is based on assumptions is that it might not be accurate. In using a hybrid approach, it might be difficult to communicate and keep track of which parts of it are based on research and which parts are assumed. However, I am going to give it a try.
Jackie II
I had a play around with colour and composition too, even though it was just in FigJam since I’d been using it to organise my research and thoughts.
Scenarios
The word ‘scenario’ has a few different meanings, depending on the context.
In the world of e-learning, which is my professional background, a scenario is usually an interactive story based on realistic situations and challenges that a learner might face. Designed well, a scenario can provide opportunities to explore and understand the potential consequences of difficult decisions.
In UX, the word ‘scenario’ could refer to:
Task scenarios for usability testing
Ideation scenarios for generating design ideas
(Salazar 2021)
I am creating an ideation scenario. Scenarios can be a powerful tool for ideation because they use narrative and storytelling both to communicate ideas and “imagine a new and better future for our users” (Cooper et al. 2014:102). More specifically, I am creating a persona-based scenario which can be described as “concise narrative descriptions of one or more personas using a product or service to achieve specific goals” (Cooper et al. 2014:105).
According to Salazar’s article (2021), my scenario should include:
A persona
A motivator
An intention or intent
An action
A resolution
Jackie’s scenario
Having decided on the key scenario components, I then wrote it out as a narrative.
This is Jackie’s scenario:
As a mum who wants to make a difference, Jackie is looking to support a local charity. She browses the Roundabout website to see if their values align with hers and find out how she could support them. She identifies ways to provide support and then either signs up or donates.
When creating this scenario, I deliberately kept it quite high-level, avoided design specifics and only included a few general references to Jackie’s needs and preferences. (Salazar 2021)
Reflections
What went well
I’m glad I created another, more detailed, iteration of the Jackie persona. I know it’s imperfect and some parts aren’t accurate, making it a cross between a proto persona and a qualitative persona. However, what I have now is useful to me because it helps me focus on the needs of users like Jackie and empathise (Cooper et al. 2014) with her when making design decisions. (Laubheimer 2020)
The Jackie persona has been useful in creating a scenario. I’ve followed the advice given in Salazar’s article which warns against “injecting solutions too early”, including “too many specifics and superfluous details” as these things can “inhibit or bias ideation” and “make design ideation too specific in these early stages” (2021). Following this advice has resulted in a scenario that makes me feel inspired.
What could be improved
Going forwards, I think it would be helpful to find a way to visually indicate which parts of Jackie’s persona are based on qualitative user research and which parts have been filled in, based on my assumptions. This would communicate the validity of the persona more clearly and transparently. It would also make it easier for me to spot which areas that need to be tested and validated or adjusted.
While the scenario is useful in helping me to focus on a specific task that a user might want to achieve, it doesn’t tell me a lot about their context or how they feel before, during or after completing the task. An empathy map might help with this, with its focus on what a user says, thinks, feels and does (Gibbons 2018). I’ll consider this technique as I gather more information about potential users and improve on the accuracy of the persona/s I create.
The Jackie persona represents someone who might support and fund Roundabout. Another important group of users is the people who need the services that Roundabout offers; young (from 16 to 25 years old) homeless people or those at risk of becoming homeless. Their needs have to be understood and considered when designing my prototype. As this group would be considered to be vulnerable from the perspective of Falmouth University’s research ethics (Falmouth University 2022), due to their age and situation, it would be difficult for me to conduct any direct, primary research with these users. However, I might be able to find existing research that would be enough to create a version of a persona that would be enough for now at least.
Future plans
Because I’ve had to create a persona which includes some assumptions, I’ve realised that I need to improve the way I gather information about users. This would enable me to gather the type of information, such as behaviours and motivations, that the Jackie persona is lacking. It would lead to persona/s that are more valid.
For this project, my next step is to create a user flow, based on the Jackie persona and the scenario I created. A user flow is a type of flowchart that shows the steps and decisions a user would take to accomplish a specific task, such as donating to a charity (Handley 2018).
When I’ve done that, I would like to conduct some user research to understand how the user flow compares with how real users are completing the same task.
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COOPER, Alan, Robert REIMANN, Dave CRONIN and Alan COOPER. 2014. About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Fourth edition. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley and Sons.
FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY. 2022. ‘Research Ethics & Integrity’. [online]. Available at: https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/research/research-ethics-integrity [accessed 9 Mar 2023].
GIBBONS, Sarah. 2018. ‘Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking’. Nielsen Norman Group [online]. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/ [accessed 9 Mar 2023].
HANDLEY, Alexander. 2018. ‘User Flow Is the New Wireframe’. Medium [online]. Available at: https://uxdesign.cc/when-to-use-user-flows-guide-8b26ca9aa36a [accessed 9 Mar 2023].
HARLEY, Aurora. 2015. ‘Personas Make Users Memorable for Product Team Members’. Nielsen Norman Group [online]. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/persona/ [accessed 6 Mar 2023].
LAUBHEIMER, Page. 2020. ‘3 Persona Types: Lightweight, Qualitative, and Statistical’. Nielsen Norman Group [online]. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/persona-types/ [accessed 7 Mar 2023].
SALAZAR, Kim. 2021. ‘Scenario Mapping: Design Ideation Using Personas’. Nielsen Norman Group [online]. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/scenario-mapping-personas/ [accessed 8 Mar 2023].
Thank you for reading.
