Let's discuss this at tomorrow's GNOME Design Office hour on #gnome-design. What time is it again? Gotta update my calendar.
On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Kirk Bridger <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 11/01/2010 05:49 AM, Allan Caeg wrote: > > > In this case it looks like there is a desire to better understand the >> general Gnome user population. I'd suggest trying to focus the personas on >> a market approach, rather than a software tool approach, as it seems like >> they'll most likely be used as marketing tools. Or perhaps take this >> opportunity to collect data on users and present it in a data-rich way, >> rather than as stereotypical users. >> > > Sorry I didn't understand what you meant here. Can you expound? > > > > Hi Allan, > > What I mean by "market" approach is that sometimes people create "personas" > for use in marketing campaigns. Think of any ad you see where there is a > stereotypical person describing how great something is. Maybe even those > Windows 7 ads where the person claims "Windows 7 was MY idea". I'd suggest > that those people are actually personas, standardized representations of > users. > > The personas can then be used in marketing in a couple of ways, such as > trying to project a certain image or attract a certain demographic, or > internally to describe specific target demographics (i.e. we want to sell to > white males 35-40 with income over $40k, 2 kids, soccer coach .. oh, it's a > persona called Jim!) > > These kinds of personas can be created in a way that is software > independent, i.e. we don't really know how those Windows 7 people actually > use specific apps, just the features they use (media streaming, file > sharing, etc). In this way the personas can help designers of the overall > experience, but they're not going to be much help to software developers for > specific projects. They need to know more details about the persona's > specific tasks, needs, mental models, etc. > > If we want to look at personas that might be useful to individual > application designers (i.e. Gnome Shell, Cheese, etc) then we might want to > look more closely at the kinds of data we're collecting, as simply surveying > existing users in this way may not uncover the depth of information that we > need to get to. I believe it was Allan Day's response that mentioned > ethnography and interviews for example. > > > I hope I've been a little more clear here. If not let me know and I'll > write up a response after a little more sleep :) > > > After all that, my opinion is that we do *something* to take advantage of > this opportunity. And if we want to create "personas" then we just need to > be clear the type we'll be creating. For example I see nothing wrong with > creating a set of 5 personas that describe at a high level the type of user > Gnome designers want to design for, and as mentioned they would fit well > within the HIG. They essentially are generalized users, not specific users > of individual apps. > > Kirk > > -- Regards, Allan http://www.google.com/profiles/allancaeg#about<http://www.google.com/profiles/AllanCaeg> +63 918 948 2520
_______________________________________________ usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
