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When it's just abstract information, especially information that has no basis in user research, it is worthless. But I'll give an example of where I've seen th

When it's just abstract information, especially information that has no basis in user research, it is worthless. But I'll give an example of where I've seen this be useful. > Bob is a marketing guy. He mostly uses his mobile for calls, but doesn't have a headset. As a result, he can't type quickly while on the phone, so any UI he needs to use while on the phone should be optimised for mouse clicks or single keypresses. This came out of some actual user research and was the justification for spending time on a 'point and click' friendly UI.

mistermann 9y ago
Isn't this just common sense though?
- michaelt 9y ago
  Evidently not, if it took user research to reveal it :)
BoorishBears 9y ago
I know it’s just an example, but does one need Bob to come to that realization? If you say you’re building for mobile, you look at the strengths and weaknesses of input on mobile devices. The biggest strength is precise finger movement. The biggest weakness is lack of tactile feedback. That leads to the same conclusion without extraneous data. I feel like personas are a way to force people to think critically about the end product. That’s not a bad thing, but just deciding to critically consider what your goal is before building something already goes a long way.
- blowski 9y ago
  It told us that it was a priority, rather than just "something that would be nice if we get around to it".
- skybrian 9y ago
  If you tell the programmers that people need to be able to use a desktop web app with one hand, they're going to want to know why. Are there really that many one-handed users out there? Sounds like a corner case. Personas are useful if they're backed by user research. That's how you know that yes, there really are a lot of "one-handed" users among your actual customers, and here's why. It seems like one pitfall with personas might be giving them to developers without including any of the supporting research that makes them a valuable summary.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    >If you tell the programmers that people need to be able to use a desktop web app with one hand, they're going to want to know why. Are there really that many one-handed users out there? Sounds like a corner case. If your programmers are tightly integrated with product development, they should have access to the insight that makes it a priority in the first place. If your programmers are removed from it, then they probably won’t care/ask. I think you kind of hint at that in your last paragraph in mentioning sharing the supporting research. Like I said, personas aren’t a bad thing, but things like user research are just good ideas anyways. Having user research lets you come to similar conclusions without a persona. If personas are what it takes to convince people to do things like crticically think and do user research about products before building I’m fine with it, but those are things you really should be doing regardless
- funkaster 9y ago
  It's about trying to be empathetic about the end user. Yes, you get to the same result, but personas are mostly useful when it's very hard for the team developing a product to eat their own dogfood. It's a tool that could bring you closer to how the end user feels/could interact with the product.
- burkemw3 9y ago
  I think of Bob as a team communication tool. Hopefully, most people on the team are familiar with Bob. When I'm working with someone else on that critical thinking thing about the end product, I can ask "What about Bob?" and teammates know what I'm talking about. Bob is a mobile user might not be complex enough to warrant a persona. I think personas are more likely to be a useful tool as the number of user types/goals increases. Personas can also be a kind of checklist as a change is made, ensuring that the change makes sense (and doesn't break) in the most common product scenarios.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I think "does one need Bob" is the wrong way to look at it. Humans are narrative animals. Storytelling is a human universal. Done right, personas are a way we can engage our narrative capacity to help us in thinking through the complexities of a domain. (Done wrong, they let our preconceptions and prejudices erase the complexity of our domain.) I'm not personally a huge fan of personas. Instead, I'm big on primary user research, where we spend a lot of time studying actual people, their lives, and how our products fit into them. But if the group of makers is large enough, you need some way to organize the insights from that into something convenient for discussion. At my last startup we were working on something related to purchasing decisions. For us, the satisficer vs optimizer distinction was key. We did dozens of user interviews, and user testing each week. We ended up with two main personas, one for the satisficer and one for the optimizer. It was handy to be able to talk about Bob vs Cate in terms of how each would react to a given design choice. By having specific imaginary people made it easier for us to put ourselves in their shoes, to talk about how the product fit into their lives. We would also talk about specific real people (e.g., user test subjects, actual users) and about theoretical constructs. But having fictional archetypes was useful to us in thinking empathetically without getting bogged down in a specific person's details.

mistermann 9y ago

Isn't this just common sense though?

michaelt 9y ago
Evidently not, if it took user research to reveal it :)

BoorishBears 9y ago

I know it’s just an example, but does one need Bob to come to that realization? If you say you’re building for mobile, you look at the strengths and weaknesses of input on mobile devices. The biggest strength is precise finger movement. The biggest weakness is lack of tactile feedback. That leads to the same conclusion without extraneous data. I feel like personas are a way to force people to think critically about the end product. That’s not a bad thing, but just deciding to critically consider what your goal is before building something already goes a long way.

blowski 9y ago
It told us that it was a priority, rather than just "something that would be nice if we get around to it".
skybrian 9y ago
If you tell the programmers that people need to be able to use a desktop web app with one hand, they're going to want to know why. Are there really that many one-handed users out there? Sounds like a corner case. Personas are useful if they're backed by user research. That's how you know that yes, there really are a lot of "one-handed" users among your actual customers, and here's why. It seems like one pitfall with personas might be giving them to developers without including any of the supporting research that makes them a valuable summary.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  >If you tell the programmers that people need to be able to use a desktop web app with one hand, they're going to want to know why. Are there really that many one-handed users out there? Sounds like a corner case. If your programmers are tightly integrated with product development, they should have access to the insight that makes it a priority in the first place. If your programmers are removed from it, then they probably won’t care/ask. I think you kind of hint at that in your last paragraph in mentioning sharing the supporting research. Like I said, personas aren’t a bad thing, but things like user research are just good ideas anyways. Having user research lets you come to similar conclusions without a persona. If personas are what it takes to convince people to do things like crticically think and do user research about products before building I’m fine with it, but those are things you really should be doing regardless
funkaster 9y ago
It's about trying to be empathetic about the end user. Yes, you get to the same result, but personas are mostly useful when it's very hard for the team developing a product to eat their own dogfood. It's a tool that could bring you closer to how the end user feels/could interact with the product.
burkemw3 9y ago
I think of Bob as a team communication tool. Hopefully, most people on the team are familiar with Bob. When I'm working with someone else on that critical thinking thing about the end product, I can ask "What about Bob?" and teammates know what I'm talking about. Bob is a mobile user might not be complex enough to warrant a persona. I think personas are more likely to be a useful tool as the number of user types/goals increases. Personas can also be a kind of checklist as a change is made, ensuring that the change makes sense (and doesn't break) in the most common product scenarios.
wpietri 9y ago
I think "does one need Bob" is the wrong way to look at it. Humans are narrative animals. Storytelling is a human universal. Done right, personas are a way we can engage our narrative capacity to help us in thinking through the complexities of a domain. (Done wrong, they let our preconceptions and prejudices erase the complexity of our domain.) I'm not personally a huge fan of personas. Instead, I'm big on primary user research, where we spend a lot of time studying actual people, their lives, and how our products fit into them. But if the group of makers is large enough, you need some way to organize the insights from that into something convenient for discussion. At my last startup we were working on something related to purchasing decisions. For us, the satisficer vs optimizer distinction was key. We did dozens of user interviews, and user testing each week. We ended up with two main personas, one for the satisficer and one for the optimizer. It was handy to be able to talk about Bob vs Cate in terms of how each would react to a given design choice. By having specific imaginary people made it easier for us to put ourselves in their shoes, to talk about how the product fit into their lives. We would also talk about specific real people (e.g., user test subjects, actual users) and about theoretical constructs. But having fictional archetypes was useful to us in thinking empathetically without getting bogged down in a specific person's details.