I know that members on this list are dubious about using personas in
the design process.
Here's a nice, solid research paper by Frank Long at NCAD in Dublin
that shows how they can improve team dynamics:
Real or imaginary: The effectiveness of using personas in the
product design process.
As you know, the use of personas as a method for communicating user
requirements in collaborative design environments is well
established. However, very little research has been conducted to
quantify the benefits of using this technique.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using
personas. An experiment was conducted using students from NCAD. The
results showed that, through using personas, designs with superior
usability characteristics were produced. They also indicate that
using personas provides a significant advantage during the research
and conceptualisation stages of the design process (supporting
previously unfounded claims).
The study also investigated the effects of using different
presentation methods to present personas and concluded that
photographs worked better than illustrations, and that visual
storyboards were more effective in presenting task scenarios than
text only versions.
The research: http://is.gd/I5Zk
Jared
Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: [email protected] p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: @jmspool
UIE Roadshow: Seattle, Denver, DC in June: http://is.gd/gxwe
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