On May 29, 2009, at 2:13 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
What you're talking about are poorly executed personas. Sure, too
many persona projects produce sucky results, but if we look beyond
that at the benefits produced by the few well-executed projects, can
we agree that, when done well, this tool has merit?
Is that a trick question? Because I would presume the answer to
question is the same regardless of topic. IOW, anything well-executed
has merit. So are you trying to trick me here? I'm about to open a keg
of beer for a Friday bash, so I'm not susceptible... yet.
It is because of items #1 and #2 that I still to this day refuse to
engage in personas as a design process voluntarily. I'm fine with
my own data collection and note taking methods, thank you very much.
But, Andrei, isn't it the case that there's a lot of poorly-executed
design projects out there? Should *I* refuse to engage in design
because too many design projects end up crappy?
I don't think of it as mixing the results of something with the
process of making it or the tools used to make it. Personas are a tool
and generate a process around their existence. The results have
nothing to do with the larger issue. As a tool, personas in their
current state aren't very well designed nor very well understood. As
for the process, personas don't add a lot of value due to the nature
of the tool not being well defined nor well understood. (Obviously, in
my experience.) We're finishing a project right now where the client's
product team kept bring up a persona they created and used the
"character" to pretty much justify whatever they felt like. It got to
the point that the persona was basically every user, and its entire
value became meaningless from my perspective. I see that happen over
and over and have now for 10+ years.
My experience is that 9 out of 10 times, people make personas
improperly, and worse, use them to make or justify whatever design
decision suits their fancy that day. But nearly every single person
I've seen use them *thinks* they are doing it right.
At least with software, often times the product prompts you with an
annoying alert that usually says something like, "You're doing it
wrong. Please RTFM."
Can't you really make that argument about anything? (Once again, we
see Sturgeon's Law raising it's ugly head.)
Ah... it was a trick question.
I probably wasn't being clear enough in my disagreement with Robert's
post.
I am of the opinion it is incumbent on the people who create a tool or
process to follow through on how it is used and executed in the field,
especially when the tool or process is being offered as a standard
practice. I do not believe it is incumbent on the people in the field
to do all the legwork themselves to understand what the tool is
supposed to be. They have to be met halfway. In that regard, my
disagreement with Robert is that I felt his comment:
"Personas suffer (in some circles) from the erroneous perception that
they are based on substantially (or entirely) fictitious data."
There's no erroneous perception going on here at all. People actually
*DO* base personas on substantially or entirely fictitious data, and
even when they are based on real data, they're sometimes injected into
the design process in entirely inappropriate ways. So while I get that
Robert claims that those poorly written character studies aren't
"personas" because they basically works of fiction, that doesn't
change the fact that people are doing it and *calling* them personas.
I'm just thinking that we need to start focusing among the few
really well done things in our practice and stop throwing out all
the babies with our bath water.
In the current form and as practiced, personas are massively broken. I
have no dog in the hunt since I do my own thing which works for me,
except when I have to constantly deal with people who use them in ways
that breaks the design process. However, if the people who care about
such things finally take it upon themselves to fix personas (as both a
tool and a process) and all that entails in this profession, I
guarantee I'll be the first in line to make sure it's implemented with
all the clients and design teams I work with.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [email protected]
c. +1 408 306 6422
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