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Understanding Users

Understanding Users. .. It’s all about empathy…. Learning Outcomes. Last week we discussed why it is important to know your users This week: Understand Personas Know how to create a persona Know how to produce scenarios. Methods. Ask users (start 14.02 and then 20) Observe users

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Understanding Users

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  1. Understanding Users .. It’s all about empathy… HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  2. Learning Outcomes • Last week we discussed why it is important to know your users • This week: • Understand Personas • Know how to create a persona • Know how to produce scenarios HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  3. Methods • Ask users (start 14.02 and then 20) • Observe users • Study users from things they do • Model users • …. HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  4. Modelling Users using Personas • Widely promoted by Alan Cooper as an integral component of Goal – Centred (Directed) design • (Refer to www.interactionbydesign.com/presentations/olsen_persona_toolkit.pdf -) • Personas are user archetypes that we construct from behavioural data gathered during user interviewsand field observations. HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  5. What is a persona? • Personas are fictitious, specific, concrete representations of target users. • Idea is: • Personas put a face on the user that serves as a design target • Convey information to the developers / team HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  6. What is a Persona? • Description of an ‘example’ user • not necessarily a real person • Use as surrogate user • what would Betty think • Details matter • makes her ‘real’ HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  7. The Power of Personas • The personas are given realistic names, faces, and personalities to foster user empathy within a product team. • Personas can be used later to evaluate the interactive product • a critical element of personas—beyond capturing typical user behavior patterns and roles—is capturing user motivations in the form of specific goals. HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  8. Creating Personas • Five Stages: • Family Planning • Conception and gestation • Birth and maturation • Adulthood • Lifetime achievement and retirement HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  9. Family Planning • Before you begin developing the persona you need to understand the problem you are trying to solve. • Are personas going to help? • Four steps: Building a team, researching organisation, creating action plan, collecting data HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  10. Conception and Gestation • Phase were you create your personas • Need to decide how many to create and how to prioritise them: • Conception • Identify ad hoc personas • Process data • Create Skeletons • Gestation • Prioritize the skeletons • Develop selected skeletons into personas • Validate your personas HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  11. Birth and Maturation • Marks the transition from persona creation to persona use • Enrich your communication strategy- convince core team of the value of personas • Introduce the persona method and your personas • Progressively educate and maintain focus on your personas HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  12. Persona Adulthood • Put the personas to use! • People allocated personas – responsible to ensure decisions are acceptable to that persona • They act as reference points – what would X or Y think • Prioritise features and functionality HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  13. Lifetime achievement and retirement • Establish return on investment • Establish what to do with them at the end of the project • Reuse • Retire HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  14. Example in use • VistaPrinta site that enables users to design and print things • Had a web application that enabled you to customise everything • User research conducted identified customisation not loved by everyone, some people in a hurry just wanted to select a template. • Designed a persona for this group. HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  15. Example Persona Betty is 37 years old, She has been Warehouse Manager for five years and worked for Simpkins Brothers Engineering for twelve years. She didn’t go to university, but has studied in her evenings for a business diploma. She has two children aged 15 and 7 and does not like to work late. She did part of an introductory in-house computer course some years ago, but it was interrupted when she was promoted and could no longer afford to take the time. Her vision is perfect, but her right-hand movement is slightly restricted following an industrial accident 3 years ago. She is enthusiastic about her work and is happy to delegate responsibility and take suggestions from her staff. However, she does feel threatened by the introduction of yet another new computer system (the third in her time at SBE). HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  16. Personas are (almost) real • Give them a name • Give them a picture • Give them a family and a home • Celebrate their birthdays!! • ….imagine them out and about doing things…… HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  17. Scenarios • “The persona is static, but the figure becomes dynamic when it is inserted into the actions of the scenario. In the scenario, the persona will be in a context, in a specific situation and have a specific goal.” Nielsen (2003) • Used by programmers to also design and program test cases for their own programs, sometimes before even writing the program itself. • HCI approaches this in a similar fashion by creating scenarios they expect users to encounter or run through. One major distinction is that scenarios cover the most likely of cases and only sometimes include the edge cases. They will never, ever, cover every possible scenario. HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  18. Creating Scenarios • “A scenario is a concise description of a persona using a product to achieve a goal” (Cooper). • concise : short but complete; breadth instead of depth • product : assume the product (software or physical device) exists, even if it doesn’t • goal : the reason why we perform a task HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  19. Why Use Scenarios? • Scenarios help us validate our design • Scenarios help us check our assumptions • Successful Scenarios help us transfer theoretical/conceptual design to “wire frame” design • Like Personas, Scenarios create a shared understanding of the end users –for the entire design team (including designers, marketing folk, engineers, executives, etc). HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  20. Example • Fifa Ultimate Team - Card Trading Game in which you build a team and compete • Steve has been playing ultimate team for several weeks and is building an English team with a formation 442. He has just bought Frank Lampard and his position is CDM (Central Defensive Midfield), he wishes to change this to CM (Central Midfield) to fit with his formation. HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  21. Fifa 12 Fifa does not assist the user in completing task – you have to search through all formation cards – it is not possible just to select one HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  22. Easy to add another option next to position e.g. change HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  23. Fifa Example Cont.. • Steve has noticed that an Inform Wayne Rooney (card with higher rating) is available. He wishes to find out how much it costs and if he can afford it he wishes to bid on it. HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  24. Fifa 12 Again it is not possible just to search for individual players – could alter it to filter on nationality but after 6 pages still no sign of the player HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  25. Example • Steve texts using multitap, he is sending a message to a number he doesn’t have in his contacts, it is a girl he met on the train and he wants to meet up with her - he has the number on a scrap of paper. He is walking down towards Euston Station, it is getting quite dark, he is texting without checking the screen,,, HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  26. Scenarios … • what will users want to do? • step-by-step walkthrough • what can they see (sketches, screen shots) • what do they do (keyboard, mouse etc.) • what are they thinking? • use and reuse throughout design HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  27. Scenario – movie player Brian would like to see the new film “Moments of Significance” and wants to invite Alison, but he knows she doesn’t like “arty” films. He decides to take a look at it to see if she would like it and so connects to one of the movie sharing networks. He uses his work machine as it has a higher bandwidth connection, but feels a bit guilty. He knows he will be getting an illegal copy of the film, but decides it is OK as he is intending to go to the cinema to watch it. After it downloads to his machine he takes out his new personal movie player. He presses the ‘menu’ button and on the small LCD screen he scrolls using the arrow keys to ‘bluetooth connect’ and presses the select button. On his computer the movie download program now has an icon showing that it has recognised a compatible device and he drags the icon of the film over the icon for the player. On the player the LCD screen says “downloading now”, a percent done indicator and small whirling icon. … … … HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  28. Writing Good Scenarios • Brainstorm, within the context of our problem domain, the goals our Personas will have • Write the Scenarios for a specific Persona • Go for breadth rather than depth – it is more important to describe things from start to finish rather than in exhaustive detail HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

  29. Next Week HCI Lecture 4 - 2011/12

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