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                                        Full day workshop on
    
    How to create engaging personas based on field studies
                 
 
                Sunday, 21 August 2005, Aarhus Denmark
 
                                        as part of

        CRITICAL COMPUTING -- Between Sense and Sensibility
        The Fourth Decennial Aarhus Conference, August 2005
 
                    Please sign up before July 1st, 2005 (see below)

           
=====================================================================

INTRODUCTION 
The process of creating personas and the persona descriptions are means for the design team to learn about intended users and use contexts. The workshop presents novel ways of creating personas, so they become valuable and engaging in use. The workshop gives hands-on experience with two different and supplementing approaches, which both are grounded in field studies. In the first approach the field data is ethnographic inspired video-recordings, and personas are created while playing a design game. The game format helps the players express and negotiate their interpretations of the field material. It results in a common understanding of the user, central people in her life world and the surroundings within which she lives. The second approach is a framework, which highlights the preconditions for creating personas that enables the reader to identify with the persona, and use it actively throughout the design process. The field data used has primarily been questionnaires and/or interviews with intended users. While the design game is strong in exploring field material and create shared understandings the second approach is powerful in writing persona descriptions that are engaging to work with.

The full description of the workshop can be found at: http://www.aarhus2005.org/

INTENDED PARTICIPANTS
It is desirable that the attendees have practical experiences with or knowledge about user-centred design methods. Both practitioners and researchers are welcome. Maximum number of attendees is 16.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE?
Potential participants should sign up for the workshop no later than the 1st of July using the conference web-site: http://www.aarhus2005.org. For later enrolment please contact the workshop organizers Eva Brandt: [log in to unmask] or Lene Nielsen: [log in to unmask]

DIFFICULTIES WITH PERSONAS IN PRACTISE
The Persona method has been gradually adopted by the industry. Descriptions of personas are written in many different ways from very brief descriptions to very long description that includes more aspects of the personas life. Personas always have names and an age and many descriptions include a photo. Lists seem to be a very popular format. Unfortunately the break-down of each persona into lists and quotes do not support the ability that stories has for long-term storing in the reader's memory and the ability to create identification. The photo connected to each persona aids the memory, but the format of lists makes it difficult to get an understanding of and remember the information connected to each persona. The suggestions of what to include in a descriptions do not consider how the persona should be constructed in order to provide the reader with an engaging experience that can create identification with the persona. Thus both researchers and practitioners find it difficult to create personas that are actually used in practice. 

The published descriptions of personas are often described as stereotypes which make it hard to identify with and have empathy for the persona. If the design team lack empathy for the personas, they are likely not to use these and often the simultaneously downgrade the intention with creating user-friendly solutions. Stereotypes often carry the solutions imbedded in the description and thereby lack the ability to explore design solutions from the persona's point of view.

HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE WITH PERSONAS
During the workshop the attendees will get hands-on experience with the two approaches for persona creation. Besides the workshop include time for discussion. Issues to discuss are for instance: problems in use when using personas, the relation between fictive and constructed personas and the factual and real persons.

Approach 1: Design games create a common understanding
The Space Studio, Interactive Institute has developed a series of four design games to help trans-disciplinary design groups facilitate a user-centered design process. In the workshop the attendees will play the first design game; the User Game, which is based on ethnographic inspired video-recordings of potential users.
The intention of the User Game is to help the stakeholders develop a shared image of the intended users grounded in field data. While playing the User Game a shared image develops through the collaborative creation of a web of interrelated stories about the user. The game can be used to develop a deeper understanding of a single user. If the field studies cover several (potential) users, the game can be used to generate a number of personas representing the larger group.

Approach 2: Framework for creating engaging personas
The framework has two functions. 1) During creation it forces the writer(s) to consider the relation between field data and fiction. It forces the writer to make decisions about who the persona is, and how many should be described. 2) The persona is a means to communicate the user to involved partners and groups in the design process. 
To function as a tool to communicate details of the user and to use the descriptions in the design process, the description must be so vivid that the reader is interested and can identify with the persona. The description must be so specific that the reader is able to use his or her own knowledge to image the user and is able to remember the user when the description is put aside. 

WORKSHOP PROGRAM
The program can be found on the Critical Computing web-site: http://www.aarhus2005.org/
Workshop 8
 
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
Lene Nielsen, Ph.D. Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Eva Brandt, Ph.D., Center for Design Research, Danmarks Designskole, Denmark

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