PERSONAS &

SCENARIOS
2004-2007 Sharon Burton

Writing/Designing for People

Source of the problem

The users idea of the problem is often

very different than yours.
The technical documents and designs
created often reflect the your viewpoint,
not the readers.

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Where to Find Info

Marketing studies
Talk to sales team, tech support
Talk to users, if possible

Call a select set

Go on local sales calls
Go to the trade shows
Work the tech support lines for a day
Sit in on a training

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Readability

The average reading level in the US

is 5th grade, so:

Keep 3-syllable words to a minimum

Avoid Latinates (utilize, facilitate, etc.)
Short sentences & paragraphs
Consider whether something can be
misunderstood
Use the same word for the same thing

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Visual/Auditory/Reading/
Kinesthetic (VARK)

Take the VARK quiz

Knowing yourself helps you find blind spots

Knowing your co-workers helps you fill
them

Lots more info at

www.vark-learn.com

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Visual/Auditory/Reading/
Kinesthetic (VARK), ctd

V Visual

Pictures
Diagrams
Flowcharts
Overheads

A Auditory

Conversational tone
Lecture-style presentations

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Visual/Auditory/Reading/
Kinesthetic (VARK), ctd

R Reading

Text books
Written instruction guides
Handouts

Kinesthetic

Class exercises
Note-taking

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Adult learning styles

While people can learn in all 4 modes,

people have preferences for learning
Learning modes are not in concrete

They can change over time, with education, etc.

People are much happier getting

information in the mode they are
comfortable with

Users are already a tense group. Why give them

information in a mode that they typically dont
like?

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

What is a Persona?
A hypothetical archetype

(Cooper)

that:

Is carefully defined
Consists of specific details culled in part
from
Marketing

demographics
Friends, family, coworkers
An anthropological/sociological understanding
of the adult learner

Is given a name
Is precise, rather than accurate

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Why Do I Care about

Personas?

Its easier to write for someone than

for everyone
It ends feature debates

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

How do I Create a Persona:

Creating the Persona

A persona is extrapolated from the

demographics:

Males age 25-45 = 32-year-old male

college graduates = BA in Business
Administration from Stanford University
upper-middle income = $85,000/year as the
Marketing Director for Amalgamated Framis,
Inc., where he has been since March of 1998

A persona also includes fictional details

you add to make it more rich and specific

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

How Do I Use the Persona?

Evaluate the features against the persona

(Will Bill Smith use this?)
Evaluate the usability of each feature
against the persona (Will Bill Smith be
able to figure out how to use this without
unnecessary effort?)
Evaluate the functionality of each feature
against the persona (Is this how Bill
Smith would expect this to work?)

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

User scenarios

User scenarios are very specific

examples of what life is like for your
example user

A story about some part of their day or job

You tell the

Who
What
Why

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Why Scenarios?

Put a context to the task or feature list

This is hopefully, your users reality

The also help you develop Use Cases

You have a person doing stuff with your product

User centered design

Think of them as defining the operating

environment

Environmental requirements
Context of use

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Example
Mary has a busy life, chasing after 3 kids under 8. 2 of them are
in school and after the chaos of getting them out the door and at
school, her day calms down a bit and its just household tasks,
like groceries and picking up the always messy house. However,
the 3 year old is starting to not want naps in the late morning
any more.
When its time for the kids to get out of school, they go to sports
and dance class. Then its pick them up, get everyone home and
make dinner while she directs the children on their homework.
And keeps them from fighting before she can feed them.
Her husband gets home in time for dinner and he takes over
bathing and getting each kid to bed. She cleans up the kitchen,
makes the lunch for the kids for tomorrow morning and then
they both collapse on the sofa for 30 minutes of staring at the
TV before they go to bed.
If theyre lucky, the youngest will only be up once during the
night. They havent been very lucky lately.

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Scenarios - continued

Summary scenarios

Dont tell how the product will solve things or

make the users life better
Do present a problem in which the product, if
the persona only *had* it, would help
Do tell what your specific user is facing in his
or her job

This lets you put yourself right in the place

of the user and what they are like in their
job

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Wrong Scenarios

The wrong scenario can make you

develop the wrong product
If you guess wrong about how people will
use the product, you design the wrong
product
Wrong design, bad product

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Learning styles

One of the most important things we can

know about our users is their learning
styles

This tells us how to design the product we

deliver
It also may tell us what else we need to
deliver to our users
A

written 200 page manual may not meet the

typical users learning styles
A text-heavy interface may not help our users
learning styles
2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

Finding out learning style

preferences

Want to clue in on other peoples learning

styles? Watch for things like:

Talking with hands Kinesthetic learners. I can

barely speak if my hands are full
Leaping up to the white board to draw a picture
Visual learners
Talking aloud about the work while working
Auditory learners

They also read instructions out loud

Compulsive note takers Read/write learners

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

How to support learning

styles

Regardless of your users learning styles,

here some things you can do to help

Pictures and line drawings visual learners

Do instructions - kinesthetic learners
Clear word pictures read/write learners
Audio auditory learners

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

One last thing

Now that you know your learning style(s),

heres a secret

You will always want to deliver information that

matches your specific learning style(s)
This may not meet the needs of your users but
you wont know why
This may also result in terrible edits by your
reviewers

They may have different learning styles than you or

the users

2004-2009 Sharon Burton & Bonni Graham

QUESTIONS?
2004-2007 Sharon Burton