The Importance Of User Personas
We’ve just finished a round of interviews with our two respective usability experts Ruth and Zef and it’s interesting stuff. I should point out that even though there is live blogging it’s been a gentle balancing act between revealing information that you are interested in hearing dear reader and respecting the privacy and game plan of each of the teams. If the blog posts have been slow it’s because it’s been difficult finding things that aren’t too sensitive to release in the public domain at this stage of the competition.Having said that, look forward to our next round of videos on YouTube. Zef from the New Zealand team has crafted very detailed, targeted set of user personas and scenarios with specific details that will inform the design based on user needs. For example, rating whether users are highly dependent on accessing the site, what kind of set up they may have at home - 56k or broadband? 1024px screen view or 800px? What essential tasks do they need to complete and what sort of accessiblity challenges do they face? I am confident that if they can follow this through to the finished product they have a very good chance of nailing this competition. The Australian Team have taken a slightly different approach to their user personas but they have their audience clear in mind. Let’s wait and see where it can go.In the meantime, we’re leaking the documents:
If you’re still awake, let’s take a vote. Tell us which approach you like and why.Renae (still awake for now)
August 19th, 2007 at 1:11 am
I am kind of impressed by the well rounded thought process from the NZ team. A website isn’t the same experience for everyone and they seem to have taken that into consideration.
August 19th, 2007 at 1:14 am
I know I’m supposed to vote Aussie, but I do like the format of the NZ personas better - easier to absorb and get the persona in your head with the largely bullet-point based format. Not sure about the usefulness of the “Reliance on site” measure.
August 19th, 2007 at 1:22 am
While I like the page by page from the Aussie team, i’d definitely pick the NZ team as they have neatly documented a lot more persona in a neat way. Being in a tabular format, I believe it is easier to read thru’ the document and compare rather than switching between pages.
That aside, NZ seem to have captured more data which might or might not help with a site build. However, IMHO, the more the data, the better the understanding that web developers/designers can have which will ultimately result in a usable, qualitative website.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Well I’ve read the NZ document while the Aussie document is downloading…
*pause to read Aussie doc*
The core content is good in both documents so it really comes down to formatting/content layout.
My vote is for the NZ formatting; mostly because the side-by-side layout and brevity of content make it easier to get a quick feel for the site’s users.
I also preferred the silhouettes over the photos, since I find photos distract me from the persona. I tend to react more to my impression of the photo than the persona written around it.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:28 am
Thanks for your feedback folks
August 19th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Please check link to NZ personas - not working for me.
August 19th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Mike - is working for us, and others have downloaded. Can you check again.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Thanks NZ for your personas - I used them today to demonstrate to my team what personas are, and we then spent 2 hours producing some for our project we’re working on; cheers!