This week I created personas for my Quick Mechanic tablet app. Before I began I went back into course materials and found the Persona project assignment sheet from this semester’s first week. I began to re-read the research sources to get a feel for what, why and how I should go about creating personas.
From Jeff Sauro I was reminded of the why. He wrote in his Measuring Usability Blog, “Personas are an archetypical user of a system, an example of the type of person who would interact with it.” He emphasised that although the persona is fictional it provides a real benefit. Sauro wrote that he was first introduced to personas in the 1990’s from Alan Cooper’s book The Inmates are Running the Asylum. I thought it was interesting that this process has been around for at least 20 years.
From there I combined ideas from the ux-lady and the The UX Review. The ux-lady approached creating personas with a recipe formula. It was easy to follow, and provided a format to plug in information. The UX Review also made sense of making the personas, with easy steps. The advice they provided was not to over do it. The persona should not be terribly in depth and minutiae details should be omitted.
The steps of how to create the person from the ux review:
1. Person’s goals
2. Person’s motivation for using
3. Person’ current pain points
4. Demographic data (age/location/sex)
5. A quote to capture their attributes
6. Short bio
7. Person’s technical ability/ devices they use
Combining the ux-lady and the steps from the UX Review I began to create my personas.
It was easy to use myself as a persona. When I developed my idea of the Quick Mechanic App I did it with myself in mind. I have an older car that I inherited from my grandfather and I know that this app would be something that I could use. Living in Hamden I do not have access to a mechanic that I know like I do at home. I also think there are a lot of people, especially people my age who would be interested or have a need for such an app.
My second persona I had to put more thought into. I wanted to show that the app is really appropriate and useful to all types of people. I wanted a totally different demographic. I came up with a middle age mother, who had concerns for her family driving a car. I think she would be likely to look something up on the app if she had a question about her car or the car her children were driving.
Works Cited
“DIY User Persona.” ux lady. N.p., 28 June 2013. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://ux-lady.com/diy-user-personas>.
Mears, Chris. “Personas-The Beginner’s Guide.” The UX Review. N.p., 22 Mar. 2013. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://theuxreview.co.uk/personas-the beginners-guide>.
Sauro, Jeff. “7 Core Ideas About Personas and the User Experience.” Measuring Usability. N.p., 31 July 2012. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://measuringusability.com/blog/personas-ux.php>.
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