The straw man argument that "personas aren't real" isn't a fair characterization when proper data gathering and analysis techniques are appropriately applied. Think of personas as putting a human face on sets of behavioral variables or dimensions. The behaviors are real, correlated, and composited for the purpose of separating idiosycratic behaviors of individuals from common attitudes, actions, and mental models of a behavioral cohort. Whether this is done via visual inspection of plotted data (as we frequently did at Cooper when we were developing the methods) , or more rigorously (in the case of larger samples) by methods like primary factor analysis, it is most certainly real data based on real observation, and not in any measure "fictional". Any "proper" persona can (given the time and resurces to do so) be validated with a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, via the use of psychographic surveys and the like.
That said, some clients and practitioners do have difficulty with the narrative aspect of personas: giving them a character photo or sketch and composite backstory. The application of any amount of created persona content is viewed suspciously (as perhaps it initially should), and equated with falsifying the evidence. But the truth this mechanism is designed to point toward is an emotional truth... an empathetic connection to these otherwise abstract constellations of observed behaviors. It is a storytelling technique, using omission and minor embellishment not to alter the facts or pull the wool over anyone's eyes, but rather to communicate and accentuate the underlying reality and truth being represented. Unless we believe that novels describing the human condition contain only falsehoods and deceits, we must concede that storytelling methods can, when employed prudently, clarify rather than obscure the truth of human narratives and behaviors. Robert. Robert Reimann IxDA Seattle Associate Creative Director frog design Seattle, WA On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Robert Hoekman Jr <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Jared raises a valuable point often left out of discussions of > > personas as "fiction". Personas should be based on rich research > > data. For every descriptive statement in a persona document, you > > should be able to go back to the qualitative or quantitative research > > to answer the question "where did that come from?". > > > > Well, sure, but that doesn't mean persona descriptions aren't fictitious. > Double-negatives aside, "based on a true story" is different than "true > story". > > -r- > ________________________________________________________________ > 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
