"Sounds ok, but how is this able to cater for unexpected behaviors? I am uncomfortable with including predicted user behaviors or the way the persona in question is going to approach the task, because I feel that it borders on relying on "gut feeling" which in my opinion should not be the way to coming up with a persona."
Huge caveat - many/most/some clients are not going to be willing to pay for a full blown user research project to generate personas. But to some extent this too can be found - or at least some generalized ideas about expected/unexpected behaviors and attitudes if we imagine a four quandrant box of different types of user research. Along one axis is qualitative to quantitative research, on the other axis is what users say they want/need/do versus what research shows they actually want/need/do. You can imagine using a combination of surveys and interviews (qualitative), to generate plots on a graph that clearly show what users "think" are their goals and motivators/attitudes, and then log file analysis and videotaped usability studies to show what they "actually" do to come up with unexpected behaviors versus expected. Log files don't lie. CRM data doesn't lie. Down-side - at least for log files and crm data - that only exists for web-based products. For thick client applicatiosn, kiosks, devices - you are going to have to rely heavily on usability tests and won't have much else. Another caveat about surveys - people lie. Not intentionally, but research has shown that often times users "Dont even know what they just did" and when they take a survey - even an anonymous one on the computer they are using - there is the tendency to want to please the machine - google the article on "Silicon Syncophants". http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is213/s01/lectures/Lecture19.ppt Which is fascinating. Off to work :-) -- ~ will "Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems" ------------------------------------------------------- will evans user experience architect [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________ *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
