Persona

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**Origins of Persona**
Introduced as the 'practical interaction design tool', Alan Cooper published the concept of personas in his book //The Inmates Are Running the Asylum// in 1998. The book, according to Cooper was meant "to alert managers to the problems inherent in designing software for use by non-engineers". However, personas gained immense popularity even in user-oriented industry such as web designing due to their "goal-directed methodology": focus on user experience, capability and functionality, and the several uses of information by users. Central questions to the idea of personas are "who are we designing for?" and "what do they want to do with our service?"

**Problem: Who is the Audience?**
Often when designers think of planning the structure and design of a website, they imagine hundreds of different users who might visit a site. Such a large audience poses a big problem. Not knowing the preferences of the audience makes it difficult to know how to design a site geared to serve their needs. A designer and the client would typically want the information to be easily accessed and useful - thus fulfilling the purpose of having a website.

**Solution: Persona**
This is where the persona concept is most pivotal. A persona is a fictional character that you construct in order to represent a prospective visitor on your site. You can have as many personas as you may like, or for example, an uber user, a secondary user and a tertiary user to cover general bases. A persona is advantageous when constructing a product or a site, because it gives a face to an otherwise abstract data and it also assists brainstorming.(Pruitt and Adlin, 2006). A persona is especially crucial for developing a realistic scenario.

**Scenarios**
In this activity, the designer comes up with a profile for the character, assigns names, faces, their possible interests, their level of education and income and imagine the kind of values that are important to them. One can also think of the type of experiences and behaviors they are likely to exhibit, allowing designers to predict the kinds of services users might be interested in and what motivates their participation. Technical aspects may also be imagined, such as their internet speed and type of computer. In short, such a process allows the designer to have a definite criteria as the basis of the design. Not to mention that it is definitely also much more fun to design a site for someone named "Amy" rather than a boring and faceless 'user'.

**An Example**
__Bombay Echo Website__ These examples have been constructed to aid a designer that was producing a website for the city, Bombay (India). The goal of the website was to increase awareness of the culture of the city, its attractiveness for traveling, its bustling economy, and its leisure-filled lifestyle and fun-filled night life. The content of the website was organized in a manner which aimed to attract three major types of people: Travelers looking for a exotic experience, Business-oriented people and Expatriates that know pleasures of the lifestyle in the city.

__Personas used for Bombay Echo__ [1] Uber User [2] Secondary User [3] Tertiary User

**Common Categories**
The content of a persona differs for each product. However, there are generally five common categories that all personas include: [1] who (age, gender, and education), [2] context (when, where, and type of computer), [3] what (goals and expectation), [4] motivation (urgency and desire), [5] robustness (timid/aggressive, and cautious/ bold).

**Benefits**
Personas provide designers the tools to make the right decisions regarding the content on the site. It helps to filter and organize content so that the potential user will find it of optimal relevancy. Ease of usability will convert one time visitors into frequent customers. It helps to put the information on the site into terms that a user will understand, and find quickly. Matters of accessibility and usability are important aspects in the activity of producing and using personas.

**Role of Research**
Although the persona is imagined, their characteristics are not completely fictional. Ethnographic research is conducted on the target audience group. They are based on research from interviews (people in real life) and data gathered during surveys of actual customers. Such data is then used to construct a portrait of the possible user. This “user” is given a name as well as a face so that the designers will have an actual “human” in mind when they are designing for the user’s needs and the requirements.

//**Slideshare Resource**//
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//Book Resources//
Informational Books by Alan Cooper on Personas and Interaction Design [1] [|About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design] This resource is an updated volume which "presents the effective and practical tools you need to design great desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites and mobile devices." It teaches the principles of good product behavior and introduce you to Cooper's Goal-Directed Design.

[2] [|The Inmates Are Running the Asylum] "Alan Cooper offers a provocative, insightful, and entertaining explanation of how talented people repeatedly design bad software-based products. More importantly, he uses his own work with companies big and small to show how to create products that will both thrill users and improve the bottom line."

[3] [|About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design] This resource is "updated to reflect the latest advances in interaction design, as well as principles specifically addressing Web and handheld platforms."

[4] [|About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design] "Here, respected software designer Alan Cooper shares his own real-world experience and design principles so that you, too, can fashion intuitive, effective user interfaces."

//References//
[1] "Amazon Online Reader: About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design." __Amazon Online Reader__. September 28, 2007 

[2] "Books." __Cooper__. September 27, 2007 

[3] Cooper, Alan. "Origins of Personas." __Cooper__. September 27, 2007 

[4] "Data Driven Design Research Personas" __Slideshare__. October 06, 2007 

[5]"New Portrait: 5 leads a week within 30 days of launch." __FirstHand__. September 28, 2007 

[6] "Personas: Describing the goals and emotions of your web site visitors." __FirstHand__. September 27, 2007 

[7] "User Personas in Usability." __Design Technologies__. September 28, 2007 