Personas from research
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After this lesson, you will be able to:
- Use research to create an affinity map that identifies trends and insights within your research findings
- Articulate the benefits and shortcomings of personas as a design tool
- Use research to create personas that reflect the target audience
STUDENT PRE-WORK
Before this lesson, you should already be able to:
- Create a competitive analysis
- Perform and recorded user interviews
INSTRUCTOR PREP
Before this lesson, instructors will need to:
- Gather sharpies and paper
- Lots of Post-it notes in variety of colors
- Make sure students bring their notes from user research from the previous day
- Print out a lot of copies of the personas worksheet and and enough research highlight worksheet for all students
Opening (5 mins)
“In synthesis, you’re trying to find meaning in your data. This is often a messy process — and can mean reading between the lines and not taking a quote or something observed at face value. The why behind a piece of data is always more important than the what.”
Instructor note: Ask if students have any questions about the homework.
Check: Describe affinity maps and what they're used for. Describe user personas and what they're used for. Describe a user flow chart and what's it's used for.
Introduction: Communicating your findings (5 mins)
For many teams, the ideal scenario is involving the team itself in the research process. If team members are observing, interviewing, or taking notes, they believe in the findings more easily.
In-house Research Synthesis: Lightweight methods are usually preferred.
- Compilations of video clips
- Photos
- Quotes
- Bulleted lists of key observations
- Synthesized list of takeaways/opportunities
- Rapidly synthesizing on Post-it and taking a photo of the results
External Research Synthesis: A more robust research report is pretty common.
- The methodology used
- The goal(s) of the study
- Major takeaways
- Supporting details and clarification
- Quotes
- Photos of any artifacts created
- Recommendations
Guided Practice: Practice Synthesizing Research (15 mins)
Get into groups of four and take out the notes from your interviews around the vacation app in yesterday's lesson.
Take Post-its and write your findings on them and create an affinity map!
Instructor Note: These notes are from the Guided Practice interviews during yesterday's lesson on user research.
Post-it Etiquette
Write on Post-its using sharpie only one observation per Post-it and be sure to write in all caps, so it’s legible to all.
Pro Tip: If each interviewee is signified by a different color Post-it, you can see if issues are shared by multiple people at a glance.
Here are the rules:
- Rule #1: It has to be something you observed, or a quote, or a behavior
- Rule #2: No solution-ing allowed — don’t assume what people need before you know the problem
Pool all of your observations with the other people in your group, and then, sort ideas into themes as a group — no talking, please. (This keeps big personalities from dominating the sorting.)
Give each grouping a title that summarizes the essence of that grouping.
Pro Tip: Separate themes by goals, not behaviors. It’s possible that not all post-its will fall into a big grouping, and that’s okay.
Instructor note: Post-its may not stick well to the wall. Urge students to use the desks. If students need help organizing their thoughts, distribute the research highlights worksheet and have them use that.
Check: What trends are you seeing?
Instructor note: Instructor should pick out examples—compliment those that are worded especially well, and dig deeper for those that could use improvement. If an observation is lacking, ask whoever wrote it to tell you more, and help students rephrase them in an observational manner. If students need extra help organizing their thoughts, you can give them the Research Highlights Worksheet, but push them to try affinity mapping their findings first.
Introduction: User Personas (10 mins)
Turn synthesized research into a tool for design
Who are you designing for? Never proceed without knowing the answer to this. To do this, you should:
- Create an artifact that is actionable. Photos of synthesized research are great, but they’re not as helpful over time.
- Construct a persona that you care about. You want something people can empathize with, something that seems like it could be a real person.
Personas
Personas can keep your product focused on your key users. When you talk about whatever you’re building, talk about it in a user-centered way. Instead of, “This software could do this, and this, and this...” try, “What would this persona need to do with this product?”
There’s a saying: “When you design for everyone, you design for no one.” Personas can keep you from designing for yourself. They are a tool to help you tailor your designs to the needs of the target audience.
They’re also a tool for stakeholder alignment. Getting everyone on the same page around who the user actually is, versus who they think it is.
Personas may Include Scenarios
Is there any important context you need to call out? Describe WHAT they would do, and WHY they would do it, but also make sure you mention the context of the situation. Where are they when this is all happening? Is there a device involved?
Be specific. Personas should be specific enough that they reflect a mixture of all the research you performed.
If your persona is vague, it’s not useful. The whole point is so that you can ask yourselves, “What would {persona name} want to do with this product?”
Let's look together at a bad persona:
Check: Discuss why this wouldn't be helpful for helping you build your product.
How about a "good" one:
Guided Practice: Create a Persona in Pairs (20 mins)
Each group of 4 should break up again into pairs. Take your synthesized research findings from the previous activity and work with your partner to create a persona based on your findings. Fill out the as many personas worksheets as needed to do this.
If your users have very different goals, you may need more than one. We can’t tell you how many personas to make!
Include the following:
- Name/Sketch
- Demographics & Bio
- Scenarios
- Behaviors
- Needs/Goals
You'll have 5 minutes at the end of this activity to present their personas.
Instructor note: Take the last 5 minutes to have each group quickly present their personas.
Independent practice: Create Personas from Project Interviews (30 mins)
Now, it's time to apply this to project 3 - get into your project groups, take the research from your homework interviews, affinity map and build personas using new personas worksheets.
Instructor Note: If a group/student has not done their interviews/research from the night before, they will work with what their team has.
For this activity:
Synthesize your research
- Start synthesizing your research homework: affinity map your observations
- Don’t forget to add headings to each grouping
- Take a photo of the results to document your findings - you'll need this later!
- If you have not finished interviewing, take the Post-its home and re-synthesize with the new information later
Make Personas
If you’ve finished synthesizing your research interviews, move on to creating however many personas were indicated by your results. Persona(s) will need to be completed as homework.
Conclusion (5 mins)
- Describe how research can be used to create personas.
- Identify the benefits of creating personas.