I think what you mean here is that you have already created personas based on real research, and your "client" wants them validated.
I've had clients ask for that too. Often this is their first foray into qualitative research, and they don't feel comfortable, and want some quantitative comfort. I know of one company that spent 7 *months* and lots and lots of time and money to "validate" their personas. More time than it took to create them in the first place. Yikes. Tamara Adlin includes several methods for validating personas in her book, including showing the final personas to future research participants or even the interviewees themselves and seeing if they resonate with them. Another method is to distill the personas into a few key traits, behaviors or characteristics and use them alongside future research. For example, is this usability research participant very Danielle-like with some Molly tendencies, or is she more like Bill? The risk to this is that people may not understand that if everyone doesn't exactly and perfectly fit into one persona or the other, it doesn't mean that the personas are invalid. However if this is used effectively, the idea that personas are always being tested and validated is a powerful one. And of course you could use those key traits to create a survey, analyze the findings, etc. etc. BUT... if fundamentally you just have some folks who are uncomfortable with qualitative research, you might start there. I usually try to explain that there are many right answers, just like there are many right ways to sort the change in your pocket, and these aren't carved in stone so if later you discover (in any way: traffic data, usability research, whatever) a gap or something unexplained you can create a new persona or clarify an existing persona if that's appropriate. I also try to emphasize that quantitative data is great and very useful and we should keep doing it, and this qualitative stuff fills a different need. Just as we don't toss out qualitative data for not doing a good job going deeply into users motivations, we shouldn't toss quantitative data for being a small sample size (or whatever the beef is with it). They're complimentary. If you can't address that, if it is the fundamental issue, I wonder if any amount of validation will be enough. Good luck! I'd be interested to hear how this effort goes for you. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47635 ________________________________________________________________ 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
