On Nov 16, 2007, at 3:04 PM, Robert Barlow-Busch wrote: > http://tinyurl.com/2nu3tr
> In the end, personas are just a report format. Or if you hate > reports (and > who doesn't?), think of them as a communications channel. I think you might find a lot of designers hate reports. At least the ones I've worked with and hired have, and I myself have them as well when they are formated in a way that makes hard to read. The biggest problem with reports is that valuable information is buried in dense amounts of text. Your posted example shows this problem, as have many of the personas I've seen in the past as well. Having said that, I know one of the best tools for designers to have that communicates valuable research are posters. Dealing with the information design as a poster exercise is useful in many ways, but the most useful thing about posters is that they can be printed in large formats and put in places where everyone can see them, discuss them and be remind of details without having to trudge through one's hard drive or multiple pages in a PDF to find or remind oneself of useful information. > I cringe when people talk about needing personas. No you don't! You > need the > particular *insights* communicated by personas, insights about goals, > behaviors, and context. If you don't need those insights (perhaps > because > you're the customer and can design for yourself), then forget > personas. Interesting point. I agree. I would suggest the insights as presented in the current format Think of it also as a Tufte problem... People develop business presentations based on decks and PowerPoint. The nature of the tool and they way it is delivered is ruining business thinking by making everyone think about the nature of business as a bulleted deck format. That's Tufte's main complaint about PowerPoint, it's making people fill out a template and not forcing them to understand not only the data, research and strategy, but also how to best communicate that data, research and strategy. And I agree with him fully on it. I would suggest to those that make persona deliverables that the format, the template and the deliverable is a core reason why personas are having trouble being adopted properly at more places. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
