On Nov 17, 2007, at 8:01 AM, Jared M. Spool wrote: > With that criteria, why are you picking on personas? Practically > every modern design technique falls into this distinction, > including user-centered design and agile methods. There are no > 'industry-standard practices', short of build-it-and-ship-it.
1. I'm an equal opportunity curmudgeon in case you haven't noticed. If you want to bring up a topic or practice that I find something lacking with, I'm sure I'll pipe in there as well. 2. "Personas" are something the ID world has fairly well established as a general practice. The way they use this data and do the research and how it gets implemented is useful information to see how the high- tech world can do the same since we aren't doing it as well as they are. So in that sense, I'm picking on them because they are highly successful in other design practices. To circle back a little then, I could say the same thing about prototypes. Part of the reason I get agitated about the topic on this list is because hi-fi prototyping is such a general practice in every other major design profession but ours and that upsets me. > What we've found is, while 'personas' are used throughout the > entire spectrum, what we call 'robust personas' are typical in > projects on the higher end of our success scale. These teams are > using these techniques to inform their design process and producing > great designs as a result. I don't doubt that. I use these similar methods where I employ feedback from users through the entire design cycle, start to middle to end. Of course that kind of methodology works. More feedback and more data is always better for designers to make more informed decisions. > Robert is correct in that it's mostly about insights. But the > insights aren't delivered by the persona description document. The > insights come from the process in its entirety. (As an aside, in > our work, we think personas are more than for insights, because the > team may need them just to confirm hunches and beliefs they already > have. If the team designs a quality experience without gaining new > insights from the persona creation process, we still consider it > successful.) Which then limits the usefulness of them to the select few who have been involved in the process itself. Don't you think it would be useful to try and break that and make it work on a larger scale and so that not everyone has to invest all of their time in this process? > Yet, we've found many teams, like Robert, believe personas *are* > just a report format. Teams that believe this, in our research, > rarely succeed at designing great experiences for their users. > (Similarly, they often believe requirements documents, market > statements, and other written deliverables are just report formats > too and fail to get the potential value from those deliverables too.) So why is this the case? Certain people on this list need to stop defending the persona process itself and start figuring out why they are done the way they are in our industry. And I assert a core part of why they are done poorly or improperly is the "report" or deliverable format. I have no data or research to back that up, just my personal experience on many large scale software products where people substitute the persona document for a larger process that needs to integrate customers into the feedback loop of the design process itself. > We can be in agreement here: poorly-done personas don't add much to > the process and eat up a lot of otherwise useful resources. > > We recommend to our clients avoid investing in poorly-done > personas. If they can make the investment (and it's not a huge > one), we recommend a robust persona creation technique. If they > can't afford that investment, we recommend other techniques. That's fine. So do I. At the same time, don't you think it would behoove our industry to figure out why personas have become potentially bastardized? > Someday, I hope you have the opportunity to work on a project that > employs robust personas. I'm betting you'll see their utility at > that point. If I'm wrong, then I look forward to learning from > your story of your experiences. I don't use "personas" the way you do. I prefer to avoid turning people into reports. (And largely because in watching others bastardize personas, I find the process often does more harm than good.) I use real people and customers through the entire design process. I show them early concepts, get their feedback all the way through, iterate and show them more, then get them in front of prototypes, etc. That's just my thing. I prefer the human element all the way through the design process if I'm allowed to do it. And when not allowed due to time or budget, I'll still find ways to do it. But personas can have their place if done properly. Again, it's my opinion that the "report" format is crushing the process. And the report format is not providing designers the tools they need to make more informed decisions. Just like engineers ignore specs when the document is written in a way they find less than useful, designers tend ignore personas for the same reasons I think. It's simply not a deliverable that helps them. And sure, if they went through the research, that's fine, but it's simply impractical to ask companies to send 20 person design teams on a research project. 2-5 is often the most anyone can afford, even large companies like Microsoft and Adobe. If that is the case, it is my opinion that the deliverable is *vital* to the success of the entire process. Especially if it is to become industry practice. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. 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