@Peter, The problem that everybody is trying to solve is as Karl Marx defined it is alienation. There is a distance between the end user and the designer of a product. To get a suit made, fifty years ago I would go to a tailor, who would have direct contact with me, and be able to understand my needs. Now, a designer in Paris or Milan who has never meet me, designs the suit.
Do persona solve the problem of the designer being alienated from the end user? Or do we end up describing our audience like Cooper (inventor of Persona's) in large generalisations. Such as "Programmers focus on What is Possible to the Exclusion of What is Probable" Statements such as this increase rather decrease alienation. I believe that there are many ways for a team to reduce alienation. These are:- - Copy Amazon and get everybody (from the CEO down) to work a couple of days in the call centre. - Get everybody in the firm to use the companies product. Don't offer staff discounts, but offer them rebates. So staff have to go through the same experience as the customer. - Get everybody to meet, and socialise with customers. @todd The issue here is that personas are a generalisation of the user base. As Christine Boese a couple of months back on the list said: Descriptive, rich, qualitative methods are by definition NOT generalizable. > That would be the whole point. One can inductively triangulate data, amass > evidence that reinforces emerging categories of data, develop heuristics, > and even conduct parallel studies and discover points of intersection > between similar qualitative or ethnographic-type studies. > > So replicate to some extent, but generalize, never. When writers merge real life characters together the work becomes fiction. How do get around the challenge of theory? How do you communicate your research findings to your clients? > For qualitative data probably very similar to the way you communicate to clients but the mapping is one to one, not many people summarised as one. The time saving is because you do not have to create a pseudo person between the research, and the report. As more information is discovered it is very easy to add to the knowledge base. For quantitative data; charts, and other forms of visualisations. James http://blog.feralabs.com 2009/3/10 Harry <[email protected]> > I was under the impression that persona's based on assumptions were called > assumptive personas, and should be treated as such. > > I vaguely recall being told about a research company (the name escapes me) > who have a system that require field researchers to tag their fieldnotes. > These tags get aggregated into categories, and ultimately, personas are > generated that consist of a series of hyperlinked statements. The reader > can > click on any statement and "drill in" to get the field notes. In theory > this > means you get data-backed personas that are accountable for their claims. > > Any opinions on this? > > Harry > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
